Queen Interested In Housing Project

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30055, 13 February 1963, Page 14

Queen Interested In Housing Project

(New Zealand press Association)

WELLINGTON, Feb. 12. “If your houses will stand up to this wind. they’re pretty good,” the Duke of Edinburgh said today when he and the Queen inspected a State housing block at Porirua. The Duke made his remark as the Royal couple were leaving a newly-completed and. as yet. unoccupied house in Northumberland street The Queen went straight to the kitchen when she entered the house with the Minister of Housing (Mr Rae), the Director of Housing (Mr J. V. Jebsont. the Mayor of Porirua (Mr W. J Brown) and the builder. Mr J. R. Dunlop She opened cupboards, investigated the hoi-water service and asked if they were standard fittings. Next she wanted to know where a woman would keep a pram. The Queen expressed considerable interest in the amount of timber used m the house, and commented that steel window frames, rather than wooden ones, were used in Britain.

She admired the matai doors and asked Mr Dunlop about the supply of native timber. Told it was not plentiful, she immediately asked why In particular, the Queen admired the view from the house, which looks right across the Porirua development to the west. Smiling after a thorough inspection, the Queen and her party were descending the concrete path when the Duke singled out a bystander “Do you live tn one of these bouses?” he asked Mr E. J. Burgess, a building overseer with the Housing Division of the Ministry of Works. “No," answered Mr Burgess, “1 just build them.” Earlier the Royal couple paid an unscheduled visit to Mr and Mrs Philip Burns’s home in the area The Burns famdy migrated from Scotland a year ago Mr Bums is civil engineer tn charge of the Porirua basin land development project.