ABSTRACT
In 1934 the London County Council adopted a programme for clearing 132 acres of the large sites, affecting over 80,000 people. The ultimate aim of the programme was to clear the existing areas of slums within a period of ten years, and at the same time to take adequate steps to deal with the serious overcrowding in many London boroughs. There were experts who, knowing the difficulties which were attached to London’s slums and overcrowding, would have advised the Labour majority to deal cautiously and progressively—meaning slowly—with the problem. The Labour Council’s attempt to clear up the London slums had met with bitter and unrelenting opposition from large numbers of slum landlords. The Labour Council discovered that there were indeed some formidable locks to the social prison-houses which constituted the London slums. During the course of the campaign against slums and overcrowding the Council built no less than 19, 552 flats.
