POST-WAR HOUSES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 56, 7 March 1942, Page 10

POST-WAR HOUSES

Women Discovering What People Want

(Hv JOAN LITTLEFIELD)

LONDON, December 13.

Among all the post-war ideas that are discussed from time to time, none is more important than the question of housing—a question which was ill-prepared and badly executed after the last war.

This time, it is hoped, things will he better, and to that end women are to be given the chance of putting forward their ideas of the housing wants of this country. They will find out whether people prefer flats or houses, big gardens or small, top floors or lower floors; how far they consider it reasonable to have to travel to work, school and shops.

Evidence will be put together about the size of settlements in which people can get together in a friendly, self-contained life, and what is the best basis for such a life. Families will be studied in "time sections" based on the age of their children, since family needs change as the children grow up.

Post.-war houses may be any colour you like, if the plans for plastic nouses examined recently by the Scottish Special Housing Association are passed. For two years in Scotland special research work has been going on to make plastic material sufficiently strong to take the place of steel girders and wooden beams in houses.

This appears to have succeeded, anci if the present plans and specifications are passed by the Department of Health for Scotland, an experimental plastic house will be built.

One of the main probletiis of Britain's great industrial drive is the billeting of thousands of drafted men and women factory hands. This may be solved by "reserved towns" where casual visitors are barred from obtaining lodgings and householders are compelled, if necessary, to billet war workers at a flat rate of 6/ per head per week for room and access to water and sanitation.