Housing (Additional Powers) Act 1919
| Year | 1919 |
Housing (Additional Powers) Act, 1919
(9 & 10 Geo. 5.) CHAPTER 99.
An Act to make further provision for the better housing of the people, to authorise the acquisition of land for the development of garden cities or for the purposes of town-planning schemes, and to make further provision with respect to the borrowing powers of public authorities and bodies and with respect to the securities issued by them.
[23rd December 1919]
B E it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1 Provision for payment of money to persons constructing.
(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Minister of Health (in this Act referred to as ‘the Minister’) may, in accordance with schemes made by him with the approval of the Treasury, make grants out of moneys provided by Parliament to any persons or bodies of persons constructing houses.
(2) Grants under this section shall be made only in respect of houses—
(a ) which comply with the conditions prescribed by the Minister and are in material accordance with the conditions as to the number of houses per acre and the standards of structural stability and sanitation approved by the Minister in the case of any scheme submitted by a local authority under section one of the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act, 1919 ;
(b ) which are certified by the local authority of the area in which the houses are situate, or on appeal by the Minister, to have been completed in a proper and workmanlike manner;
(c ) the construction of which is begun within twelve months after the passing of this Act and which are completed within that period or such further period not exceeding four months as the Minister may in any special case allow:
Provided that a proportionate reduction of the grant shall be made in respect of any house which is not completed within the said period of twelve months unless the Minister is satisfied that the failure to complete the house within that period was due to circumstances over which the person constructing the house had no control.
Any person aggrieved by the refusal or neglect of a local authority to grant a certificate under this subsection in respect of any house may appeal to the Minister, and, if the Minister is satisfied that the house has been competed in a proper and workmanlike manner, he shall certify accordingly.
(3) In so far as the provisions of any building byelaws are inconsistent with the conditions prescribed by the Minister under this section, those provisions shall not apply in respect of any houses which comply with those conditions:
Provided that, as regards the administrative county of London, the Minister shall not prescribe any conditions inconsistent with the provisions of any building byelaws in force in the county except after consultation with the London County Council on the general question of the relaxation of such provisions in connexion with the construction of Houses under this Act.
In this Act the expression ‘building byelaws’ has the same meaning as in Part I. of the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act, 1919.
2 Aggregate amount of grants.
(1) The aggregate amount of the grants to be made for the purposes of the preceding section of this Act shall not exceed fifteen million pounds.
(2) A grant shall not be made under the preceding section of this Act in respect of any house in respect of which any payment out of moneys provided by Parliament may be made under section seven or section nineteen of the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act, 1919, and a payment shall not be made under those sections in respect of any house in respect of which a grant has been made under the preceding section of this Act.
3 Provision as to expenses under s. 16 of 9 & 10 Geo. 5. c. 35.
(1) Any expenses incurred by the Minister under section sixteen of the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act, 1919, in connexion with the conversion of buildings into separate tenements shall, subject as hereinafter provided, he paid out of moneys provided by Parliament:
Provided that such part of any such expenses as would have been home by the local authority if they had been expenses incurred in carrying out a scheme to which section seven of the said Act applies shall be payable by that authority and shall be recoverable from that authority as a debt due to the Crown, and the certificate of the Minister as to the part of the expenses to be home by the local-authority shall be conclusive.
(2) The provision of money for the payment of any amounts payable by a local authority under this section shall be a purpose for which the authority may borrow under Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890 .
(3) The Minister may make Orders containing such provisions with regard to the vesting in the local authority of any buildings converted into separate tenements under the provisions of the said section sixteen and such consequential and supplemental provisions as the Minister may think necessary, and any order so made shall be binding on the local authority.
4 Amendment of s. 7 and s. 19 of 9 & 10 Geo. 5. c. 35. with respect to amount of annual payments.
4. Section seven of the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act, 1919 (which provides for the recoupment out of moneys provided by Parliament of losses incurred in connexion with certain schemes), and section nineteen of that Act (which provides for the contributions out of moneys provided by Parliament towards costs incurred by public utility societies and housing trusts) shall respectively have effect as though for the words ‘equivalent to thirty per centum of the annual loan charges,’ where they occur in each of those sections, there were substituted the words ‘equivalent during the period ending on the thirty-first day of March nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, to fifty per centum and thereafter to thirty per centum of the annual loan charges.’
5 Prohibition of building operations which interfere with provision of dwelling-houses.
(1) Where it appears to a local authority that the provision of dwelling accommodation for their area is or is likely to be delayed by a deficiency of labour or materials arising out of the employment of labour or material in the construction within their area of any works or buildings (other than works or buildings authorised or required by, under, or in pursuance of any Act of Parliament), and that the construction of those works or buildings is in the circumstances of the case of less public importance for the time being than the provision of dwelling accommodation, the authority may by order prohibit for such time and on such terms and subject to such conditions as the Minister may from time to time prescribe, and either in whole or in part, the construction of those works or buildings.
(2) Any person aggrieved by an order made by a local authority under this section may, subject to rules of procedure to be made by the Minister, appeal to the Minister, and on any such appeal the Minister shall refer all such cases to a standing tribunal of appeal, consisting of five persons, to be appointed by the Minister, which shall have power either to annul the order or to make such order in the matter as the local authority could have made, and the decision of the tribunal of appeal in the matter shall be final and not subject to appeal to or review by any court.
(3) Where any appeal against an order made under this section is not finally determined within fourteen days after the date on which notice of appeal against the order was given, the operation of the order shall be suspended as from the expiration of the said fourteen days until the appeal has been finally determined.
(4) If any person acts in contravention of or fails to comply with any of the provisions of an order made under this section, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, and, if the offence is a continuing offence, to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds for each day during which the offence continues, and, where the person guilty of an offence under this section is a company, every director and officer of the company shall be guilty of the like offence unless he proves that the act...
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