The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1952. Housing Problems

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26671, 4 March 1952, Page 6

The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1952. Housing Problems

lit is a good thing that the Federation of Master Builders, in conference at Rotorua and in the presence of the Minister of Works, should have taken the opportunity to Consider reasons why the industry has failed' to meet the country’s huge and unsatisfied building needs. Not many will disagree with the presiident of the federation '(Mr R. C. Savory) that the main difficulty has been and still is shortage of labour —lack of manpower not only for construction but in the ancillary industries which supply and serve the building industry. There is no quick or easy solution to this problem. The most promising, as Mr Savory suggested, is a larger inflow of migrants. But the chief obstacle to increased immigration is the shortage of housing; and so the vicious circle is completed. The [circle can be broken—by speeding [the building of houses. Action to [meet the pent-up demand for houses since the war, as Mr Savoty [said, has been “along conventional “ and certainly cautious lines ”, And it has not been effective. Much has undoubtedly been done; but the demands of an expanding population —which needs to expand more rapidly still—have not been satisfied. There can be little doubt that the Labour Government made a major blunder when at the end of the war it set its face against temporary and sub-standard housirig. Had a small proportion of the resources of the building industry been diverted to temporary housing at that time—While the tnajor proportion continued to build standard houses—it is probable that not many fewer people would now be well housed and certainly far fewer Would be badly housed. The building industry has been under heavy strain since the war; it has had no breathing-space in which to take stock of its position and to adjust itself to new conditions. No doubt there are exceptions to the general rule; but the industry as a whole is Obviously ill-organised and inefficient. Buildings Of all kinds take three, foujf, or five times as long as they should in the building; and in spite of new techniques and materials costs have risen beyond the average, for comparable goods and services. “An entirely new outlook is necessary from the industry and the Government ”, declared Mr Savory. It will need to be an imaginative outlook. It is too late how fob temporary housing oh a large scale, although this may still pelieve local pressures. The sense of emergency which at the end of the war Would have justified temporary housing on a national scale—and made it generally acceptable—is now lacking; and most of the war-time military buildings which Could have When cheaply and quickly turned into useful housing uftits have been disposed of--with the exception of a few which have Been used by local bodies for transit hbUSing. Nof does it seem likely, front) Mr Goostoah’s account, that imported prefabricated houses will prove a solution of this country’s housing and population problems. In the end, the best hope nay lie in the reorganisation of the industry, or parts of the industry, With Government assistance. Mr Savory has suggested that the Government, should give financial assistance to firms which have the necessary technical and organising ability ‘‘to create separate building organ- “ isations to attack at once the housing problem ”. Undoubtedly much can be done by the organisation of large, self-contained industrial units. The "Sydney Morning “ Herald ”, which recently inquired ihto the reasons why building costs are higher in New Sbutrf Wales than in other Australian States, found striking proof of this iff Perth, Western Australia. There, a single flrm has developed its own brickyards, three timber mills, a large joinery works, a plasterboard factory, and a furniture factory; and it has thus achieved the first requisite of economical building— the steady flow of'materials to the sites. The firm builds hearty 300 brick houses a year, each one taking about four months; and according to the “ Sydney Morning Herald” writer the difference in price between these 'houses and comparable homes built jin Sydney is measured in four i figures rather than in hundreds of pounds. There are opportunities here for a fruitful partnership be-1 tween the Government and thel building industry; but their com-l mon will need to be pursued with very much more resolution than was shown, for instance, in the Government’s endeavour to speed house construction in country districts.