BUILDING NEAR LONDON

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21647, 4 December 1935, Page 5

BUILDING NEAR LONDON

GREAT DEMAND FOR HOUSES QUIET CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE Great building activity in the outer areas of London Was noted by Mr Mark Armstrong, of Christchurch, who has returned from a visit to Britain and America. In London, Mr Armstrong found nothing approaching boom conditions, but a sense of prosperity and progress, based on safe and stable grounds. The quiet confidence of the people in their own stability seemed to be linked with intense loyalty to the Royal "Family and faith in the Government In the north of England, said Mr Armstrong, the unemployment situation was noticeably bad, but this was definitely not so in London nor in the south, where he travelled extensively. A lot of foreign firms were now finding it politic to manufacture in England, and were building their factories -on the outskirts of London.

The building of the factories absorbed a considerable amount of labour, as did the staffing of the factories when completed. The factory workers wanted houses, and everywhere on the outskirts of London blocks of flats and houses were going up rapidly. If expansion continued at the present rate, London would be a colossal place in/50 years. The opinion was held in some quartos, -said Mr Armstrong, that the

building of flats and houses was being overdone, and there was definite evidence of this. Once it was possible to let flats before the designs of the buildings were completed. Then came the stage when they could be let before the buildings themselves were finished, but now it was sometimes quite difficult to let the flats when they were finished.