Firstly, just a brief addition to blog 24. The building which Skirlaugh Rural District Council was converting to flats in the late 1920s survives still and has now for many years been local council offices. This unprepossessing building has had a fascinating history with its various internal arrangements being changed to suite changes nationally as well as locally. It remains sited at the very northern end of the village.
The 1930s was a decade when for most rural areas a combination of positive legislation and experience gained from the stop-start schemes of the 1920s resulted in a considerable increase in rural council housing provision. That said, Skirlaugh R.D.C. continued to resist embarking on schemes of public building between 1930 and 1935, and only after amalgamation with Patrington R.D.C. in 1935 was progress made. Between 1930 and 1935 Skirlaugh’s medical officer of health had wanted a council building scheme to enable ‘filtering up’, whereas the sanitary inspector favoured repair of the existing housing stock. Then, as now, it was argued that renovation cost more than replacement, so stagnation followed.
In 1931 Skirlaugh’s housing inspector, as required by the terms of the 1930 Housing Act, carried out a parish-by-parish housing survey to determine the volume of ‘unfit’ housing and overcrowded properties. In 1933 the R.D.C. dragged its heels over the preparation of a five-year-plan of slum clearance and replacement building, despite being put on-the-spot by a visiting Ministry inspector.
By the summer of 1936 schemes were developing across the East Riding to replace unfit housing and abate overcrowding, this latter being the main thrust of the 1935 Housing Act. In the Holderness Rural District Council, the new name for the amalgamated Skirlaugh and Patrington R.D.C.s, area a further housing survey revealed 49 houses as ‘unfit’, 78 as ‘possibly overcrowded’ and 13 as ‘definitely overcrowded’.
The autumn of 1937 was a remarkable time in the old Skirlaugh R.D.C. area for after years of prevarication the area was on the verge of a comprehensive scheme of council house building.
(to be continued).