London." The result shows that in the central districts the ratepayers have sustained a loss of £412,683 in re-housing 7,586 persons on 18.55 acres, while in the suburbs the Council has already housed 1,787 persons on fifteen acres without any loss to the rates. That is to say, on the one hand there is great waste of public money and a congested population per acre, and on the other, no loss of money at all, and a population housed under fairly healthy conditions. 1 Taking Liverpool as an example, up to the end of December, 1917, the last date of available figures, the total cost of demolition, i.e., work done under the Liverpool Sanitary Amendment Act, 1864, was £303,396 6s. 8d., whereas the amount expended on housing under the Housing of the Working Classes Relative Costs Local Authority Acts was £909,766 19s. 2d. The total cost of housing and demolition, therefore, amounts to £1,213,163 5s. 10d., of which sum there is a balance still owing of £711,122 8s. 8d. The interest and sinking fund on this this sum amount to £49,624 15s. 7d. per annum. Deducting therefrom the net receipts which, amount to £13,513 9s. 2d., there remains a balance of £36,111 6s. 5d., which is the present net charge per annum for the whole of the work, and is equivalent to approximately 21d. in the £. These total sums are set out in the table on the next page. The net charge to ratepayers in respect of housing for the past ten years is as follows 1 Royal Commission Appendix, No. 6, pp. 233 et seq., vol. 8. TATEMENT showing Cost of Presentments under Liverpool Sanitary Amendment Act, 1864, also Cost of Dwellings under the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act, 1875, and the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, 1890 to 1909. 1 Annual Ground Rent paid for site. The present annual charge for the whole of the work is £33,877 14s. 5d. Included in this amount is the sum of £7,731 4s. 3d. which is the annual charge for interest and sinking fund on the cost of clearing away insanitary property under the Liverpool Sanitary Amendment Act, 1864, undertaken mainly for health reasons. The balance of the annual charge, £26,146 10s. 2d., represents the cost of the whole of the housing work. Deducting therefrom the sum of £3,373 11s. 6d., there remains the net annual charge in respect of the restricted dwellings, i.e., the re-housing of the dispossessed, of £22,772 18s. 8d., which is equal approximately to 1 d. in the £. It must, of course, be borne in mind that in paying off the sinking fund a valuable asset is being built up for the future citizens of Liverpool. In fact, the work has been so long in progress, with regard to two of the earlier blocks erected, that the sinking fund on the capital expenditure will have been paid off in about ten years hence, and a net revenue of some £2,000 per annum will accrue to the ratepayers. In May, 1905, the Liverpool Housing Committee adopted the following scale of rents upon which the rents of tenements subsequently erected were based NOTE.-These rents include the use of a scullery and w.c., separate to each house. As illustrating the possible progress which might be made by local authorities the following Statement gives Liverpool the Dwellings erected under the Liverpool Housing Schemes, showing the Number of Tenements and the Gross Annual Rental. Housing Schemes. |