CO-OPERATIVE BUILDING

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27274, 15 February 1954, Page 6

CO-OPERATIVE BUILDING

WELLINGTON SOCIETY WORK MEMBERS COMPLETE TWO HOUSES “The Press’* Special Service WELLINGTON, February 14. Two homes are completed and are occupied by their owner-builders, four are under construction, and five more ere planned, says the progress report to be given to the 20 members of the Wellington Homebuilders’ Cooperative Society at their half-yearly meeting this month. Some of the members have more than 1000 hours of work to their credit, and in the excellent weather experienced this summer they have been able to average about 10 hours each Saturday, Sunday, and holiday, with the aim of getting the four houses covered in so that interior fin- . ishing can go on without interruption in the rainy week-ends later. Some members have achieved the equivalent to two 40-hour weeks each month of this summer. The society can be described as a credit union, lending hours of work from its capital instead of cash. The owner of one of the two houses completed has now ended his “leave of absence” granted to enable him to finish paths, and painting, and has begun to return the 1500 hours debited against him, by working on other houses. Cost of section, work done on excavation and foundations before the society was formed, plus the completion by the society came to a few pounds less than £3OOO for a house of 1450 square feet. The home is valued at £4500. The owner, facing two or three years of week-end work repaying his debit of hours, says he knows of no other spare-time job that plays £1 an hour free of social security and income tax and at the same time develops an additional skill.

Rendered into terms of annual income, 600 hours of work a year represents for him an equivalent of £6OO a year tax-free, equal to about £750 of normal income subject to income and social security tax.