CHRISTCHURCH FACTORIES

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26659, 19 February 1952, Page 8

CHRISTCHURCH FACTORIES

"SECTIONAL” BLOCK SUGGESTED RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL A recommendation that the City Council, as an experiment, should give serious consideration to encouraging or building one group of “flatted” or "sectional” factories, which would be available for small factories in loaelities other than in the main industrial areas in" or near the centre of the city, was made by the housing and town planning committee in its report at a meeting of the council last evening. The recommendation was made in a section of the report dealing with an application for permission to make store-room additions to a light engineering workshop in a residential area of Spreydon. The report stated that the factory had been operating for 20 years, and at present manufactured light goods, including radio aerials for cars and tubular steel shaping for furniture. Four men were employed in addition to the proprietor. When the premises were inspected the proprietor said that he intended to rebuild the factory in permanent materials in a few years, but did not intend to enlarge the business except perhaps to employ one extra boy. He said also that there had been no complaints from any neighbours-in the last 20 years. “Good planning requires groups of small light factories in the various residential districts of a town,” stated the report. ‘‘These factories should, however, be grouped together and not scattered as individual units among houses where they could create considerable nuisance on occasions. The grouping of factories also lent to the proper and economic development of services for the factories themselves. “In this particular case the factory is possibly serving a useful purpose in that it can provide work for local labour. At the same time, .if this factory, which is rather larger than the backyard factory, and others like it, are allowed to be built indiscriminately among houses then the amenities of residential districts could be adversely affected.”

The application was approved, on condition that no further extensions would be allowed in the future.