HC Deb 26 June 1957 vol 572 cc371-8

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. Hughes-Young.]

11.17 p.m.

Mr. John Eden (Bournemouth, West)

I should like this evening to raise a matter concerning the affairs of constituents of mine, Mr. and Mrs. Charman. Until a very short time ago they lived in my constituency at 46, Denmark Road, and they have suffered a series of misfortunes which form, I think, a suitable subject to be raised in this House.

I should be grateful to have the opinion of my hon. Friend in this matter before we finally adjourn tonight. The facts are that Mr. and Mrs. Charman purchased the house known as 46, Denmark Road, in June, 1952, from a family of the name of Long, and they took over the remaining mortgage facilities which had been arranged with a building society. That society had previously, I understand, surveyed the property in 1951, and, therefore, the Charmans, when they took over the property, did not think it necessary to have a further survey. They assumed, for one thing, that since the building society was prepared to make available to them the remainder of the mortgage facilities, the house was in a

state of reasonable repair. They thought that it was not necessary to incur any further expenditure by having a second and private survey.

They very soon found that that was very far from the true position. The house was discovered to be in an appallingly bad state of repair. The roof had sunk, the guttering was broken, the eaves underneath were rotten, there was no damp course, and throughout the premises dry rot was apparent. Apart from all this, conditions were seriously aggravated every time there was heavy rain. Severe flooding took place because this house was in the lowest part of that particular road. Storm water naturally flowed to the lowest part of the roadway, and unfortunately the drainage system was very much overtaxed. When one remembers the tremendous building development in this part of Bournemouth in the last twenty or thirty years, one can realise that that had far outstripped the facilities of the normal drainage scheme.

The result was that when heavy rain came serious flooding occurred in and around number 46. In fact, only two weeks after Mrs. Charman's son was born, she had to stand up to her waist in water in an effort to try to keep the floods from rising and mounting the stairs. She had to go so far as lifting floorboards in a downstairs room in an attempt to get the water to drain away. The flooding had far worse effects on the sewerage system of the property, because it caused the W.C. to flood back. This in itself caused considerable hardship to the family, consisting of a young daughter and a young son.

Before long, the walls and floors, the carpets, the curtains and, indeed, the clothing of the Charmans suffered seriously from damp. They became extremely mildewy and were extremely unhealthy. The children suffered from rashes and the daughter, at the age of three, got a serious hysteria and could not sleep at night, particularly during rain. The parents' nerves, too, suffered adversely. This was a great misfortune for the husband, who was working on night shift on extremely important work at a nearby aircraft factory. He was, naturally, worried by what was happening to his wife and children, which to some extent adversely affected his work.

I have made a number of inquiries into how this set of circumstances has arisen. During my inquiries with the town clerk of Bournemouth and with the director of the building society, I have found a number of points which I believe to be disturbing and on which I should like the opinion of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. The first is an extract from a letter sent to me by the Town Clerk of Bournemouth, in which he says: The essential cause of Mrs. Charman's trouble is that Bournemouth has outgrown its sewerage system and the sewers which were laid at the beginning of the century are now inadequate. It also became apparent from the course of my correspondence with the building society that the society had to some extent accepted a certain sense of responsibility in this matter. Whilst legally, perhaps, the society had nothing for which to answer, and whilst in law, I am quite ready to understand, it was more than adequately covered by clauses contained in the agreements it had entered into with the Charmans, nevertheless it was prepared to go so far as to express a token of sympathy with the Charmans by accepting reduced payments from them.

Apparently, the building society was so concerned by the reports which had been made that it organised a separate survey to provide an up-to-date report on the condition of the property. This survey confirmed that the storm water drainage system had, in fact, been connected with the sewerage system. The sewerage system itself was already very much out of date, and since the two were connected together and there had been this enormous amount of building, obviously the whole thing was totally inadequate to meet the needs of that area of Bournemouth.

I cannot understand why the council allowed this development to take place without making any moves at all to improve upon the sewerage facilities provided in that part of Bournemouth sooner than it has done. It seems to me that the council has allowed this to go on for much too long without making any imaginative proposals whatever to avoid the sort of conditions which have arisen and of which the council has been well aware for some time.

The building society has now made matters to some extent worse for the Charmans by refusing to transfer the mortgage facilities to any other purchaser. In a letter, the society expresses the feeling that in view of the condition of the property, it would be improper for us to encourage a third party to buy at a figure which would be much in excess of the present market value. How has this come about? I wonder what has really happened between 1952, when the Charmans took over the property and were accepted by the building society, and 1957. What happened to cause this property to deteriorate so rapidly? Can it be that it was already in a poor condition at the very start and that the building society did not adequately survey the property and did not satisfy itself about the condition of the house?

The Charmans now find themselves in a most unfortunate position. They decided to leave the house, because, naturally, they could not continue to live in those conditions. They took with their remaining capital a 22 ft. caravan, in which they lived until just the other week. Now the husband has been forced to leave his job on the night shift at the aircraft factory and has taken other employment at less remuneration, but with a house which goes with the job, a tied house, as it were, to enable his family to have proper quarters and to keep his family together. It seems they have fallen on extremely unfortunate circumstances through no fault of their own.

I ask my hon. Friend whether he does not agree that to some extent the local authority has a responsibility in this matter. The town clerk in a letter to me the other day said that when the new sewerage scheme, which has at last been the subject of a public inquiry, is in operation the causes of the unsatisfactory condition of the house will be removed, and subject to any repairs or cleaning operation, which may be necessary being carried out, there should be no further trouble". In my submission, this is an admission by the town clerk that the county borough has a responsibility in this matter, and that had the whole of this drainage and sewerage problem been set right before now, the Charmans would not have inherited those unfortunate conditions in which they found themselves.

This is a family who have tried hard to help themselves, tried hard to make a life of their own, and who have a full sense of responsibility. They are not trying to fob responsibility on to the local authority. They have not tried anything of that kind. They have done their best to look after themselves in what they believe to be the right way, and through no fault of their own they have come upon this great misfortune. Yet no one else seems to be ready to accept any responsibility in this matter—neither the building society, which shelters behind some legal formalities, nor the local authority, which claims that it is not its concern. I ask my hon. Friend whether, in these days of enlightened welfare, such circumstances should be allowed to continue.

11.28 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins)

I agree indeed with my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden) that this is a most unfortunate case, and if there were anything at all I could do or say which would help this unfortunate family I would very gladly do it or say it. The facts of the case are hardly in dispute. The house, in Denmark Road, Winton, Bournemouth, was built in the days before the Winton Urban District Council was taken over by Bournemouth in 1901. The house is more than sixty years old.

It was bought, as my hon. Friend said, by Mr. Charman in 1952, for, I think, £2,000. At that time the building society concerned agreed to transfer the outstanding mortgage of £1,400 to Mr. Charman. The building society had had the property surveyed in 1951, when it was purchased by the previous owner, and one assumes, as my hon. Friend did, that at that time the condition of the property was found to be reasonable. I suppose that it was for that reason that my hon. Friend's constituent did not think that a survey was necessary when he undertook the purchase and did not use the services of an agent or of another professional man.

Since September, 1951, the borough engineer of Bournemouth has certainly had reports of flooding in the Winton area on several occasions. I believe that on one occasion he had a report of flood- ing actually within the precincts of this house. I do not dispute for a moment that it is also the case that the health of the man and his wife and of at least one of the children may have suffered as a result of the circumstances in which they have been living.

My hon. Friend has invited me to deal with three questions. The first, that of rehousing, is now largely an academic one. Although this gentleman applied for a local authority house to the Bournemouth Corporation he did not at the time qualify because he had not been on the list for the requisite period of six months. In any case, he has since taken another post which carries a house with it and the family is at present housed. As to the responsibility of the building society when it arranged its mortgage facilities with Mr. Charman, the position is that my right hon. Friend has no jurisdiction in relation to either general control over societies or control over individual transactions.

Section 9 of the Building Societies Act, 1939, uses these words: Where a society makes to a member an advance for the purpose of its being used in defraying the purchase price of freehold or leasehold estate, the society shall be deemed to warrant to the member that the purchase price is reasonable unless before any contract requiring the member to repay the advance is entered into the society gives to the member a notice in writing, in such form as may be prescribed, stating that the making of the advance implies no such warranty. I understand that building societies, generally speaking, serve a notice disclaiming any responsibility for the reasonableness of either the purchase price or the condition of the property. I assume from what my hon. Friend has said that such a disclaimer was incorporated in the contract in this case.

I hesitate to say anything on whether the building society should or should not take any further action. I certainly think, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree, that this case serves to emphasise how important it is that prospective purchasers of houses should take professional advice before embarking upon purchase. Time and time again it has been demonstrated that it simply is not good enough to rely either upon appearances or upon the results of earlier surveys. I would take this opportunity to urge that any person, and certainly one lacking in professional knowledge, should certainly consult at any rate a citizens' advice bureau before embarking upon house purchase, as a preliminary, of course, to taking professional advice.

The third question concerned the position of the county borough of Bournemouth and the sewerage facilities in the area. My hon. Friend has suggested that the local authority may have some responsibility for what has occurred. I do not deny that the Bournemouth local authority has, and has had for a long time, a very formidable sewerage problem. In May this year a public local inquiry was held by one of the Ministry's engineering inspectors. This was concerned with an application for consent to borrow the better part of £1 million to provide sewerage in the Winton area, as well as a new sewage disposal works for the whole of Bournemouth. While the report of that inquiry is not yet ready, there can be no doubt at all that the Winton area ought to be given the proposed relief sewer as soon as it is humanly possible. This would take over from what is now a very unsatisfactory network of cross-connected soil and surface water sewers which are responsible for the backing up of sewage and flooding at various points over a considerable area in the district.

As I have said, the problem is not a new one to Bournemouth. It has been well known for at least twenty years, and as long ago as 1938 the local authority thought of tackling it. The new relief sewer will have to discharge through an enlarged trunk sewer into a new sewage disposal works, and while these works certainly should be built as quickly as possible, it is the reckoning of the local authority that the relief sewer will not be working for about seven years. It may be possible with a great deal of effort to contract that period to about five years, but I cannot put a more hopeful figure upon it than that.

As to the general responsibilities of a local authority in matters of this sort, local authorities have a general duty under the Public Health Act to provide such public sewers as may be necessary for effectually draining their district for the purposes of that Act, but other than this they have no special responsibility in the case of the flooding of individual property, which unfortunately occurs in many of our large cities and in built-up areas.

In regard to the rather more pointed question as to whether my hon. Friend's constituent might have any rights of redress against the local authority, I have taken advice on that point and I am informed that in cases of this kind which have been before the courts it has been held that if there is evidence not of active negligence but simply of a local authority not doing something which it is its general duty to do—that is, non-feasance as opposed to misfeasance—then the private citizen has no remedy by way of damages.

I am very sorry indeed that I cannot be more helpful to my hon. Friend or his constituent. I agree that this is a very distressing case. I think it is a pity that Mr. Charman did not take professional advice when he was embarking upon this purchase. I think, too, that it may be a pity that the local authority has not improved its sewerage before now, but beyond that I am afraid that I cannot on behalf of my right hon. Friend accept any responsibility in the matter.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes to Twelve o'clock.