1940 BUILDING

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 85, 4 January 1941, Page 11

1940 BUILDING

Wellington Figures Exclusive of State construction and' buildings and houses, the estimated value of buildings for which permits were issued by the city engineer’s department, Wellington City Corporation, in 1940 totalled £842,832. The 1939 figure was £973,163. These figures are not a true guide to the value of building in the whole of the Wellington district in 19-10. There have been large sums spent on military works which would have made building in 1940 probably a record. The Hutt Valley, whose figures come into those of the Hutt City Council. Petoue Borough Council, Hutt County Council, and Upper Hutt Borough Council, and the eastern bays (Hutt County and Eastbourne Borough Council) have also had considerable building construction, the Housing Department having been most active in Itower Hutt and adjacent county areas. There have also been industrial buildings erected in the Hutt Valley, and a start has been made with the Hutt Valley Hospital and nurses' home, to cost £298,000. In Wellington city, a soldiers’ 100-bed hospital, being erected by the Public Works Department, in the public hospital grounds, the State Fire building and the adjoining Government block in. Stout Street are major works which were proceeding in 1940 and will be continued this year There was also a contract let late in 1940 for a 10-storied block of 116 flats, to be erected in Dixon Street .West for the Housing Department. This year will see a number of problems in building construction. There will be difficulty in obtaining steel, rising costs, and increased scarcity of skilled labour, because of absorption of men in the armed forces. On the other hand there is a number of ini portant, essential building works contemplated, among these probably the long-projected blocks at the Wellington Public Hospital.