HOUSING POLICY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 206, 29 May 1944, Page 4

HOUSING POLICY

When, during the course of ifn address last week, Mr. Malcolm Fraser stressed the importance of the small builder in any plans for the provision of houses he was on very sound ground. The Government, by both word and action, has shown that it regards building as being largely a matter for big-scale' operations. The need for housing accommodation, admittedly, was never greater and in order of urgency building must have a prominent place. The same conditions, and in some instances in a more aggravated form, face other countries. In Great Britain, in addition to the need for some millions of new houses, there is the necessity for repairing, or replacing, further millions of dwellings damaged by enemy action, or in repelling it. The preparations in the Mother Country have been in train for some time, and a commission was sent to the United States to study the uses of new materials and methods.

Building operations in the United Kingdom, in post-war vears, will reach a level never before recorded, but the importance of the small builder in the scheme of things is plainly realized. One authority, writing on the matter some months ago, said: “There will still be special scope for the large firm; but the small jobbing builder wil certainly return and will, as a class, prove the mainstay of the local building industry.” That, obviously, will be the position heie provided the Government, in its determination to build State houses for rental purposes, does not impose conditions, such as priority in the supply of materials and labour, that Will seriously handicap the small man. These small builders, with few exceptions, graduate from the ranks o’f working carpenters, and there must be very many men in the Dominion who, with the experience they have gamed during the war years, will be desirous of starting in business-for themselves. In addition there are many builders who, in these exceptional days, have had to suspend private building but will be anxious to resume operations. . . . ( . The activities of the small builder are inevitably associated with the home-owning demand. The building of places for rental puiposejs must now be very limited, legislation during the last seven or eight years having stopped, to a large extent, what was formerly a popular form of investment. The effect of that pohey has been a major factor in producing the housing shortage. 1 here are many people—and it is a thing which the State should encouiage in every possible wav—Who have a strong desire to own their own home It would be safe to assume that some part of the money that has been placed in the savings banks, or deposited with the trading banks, has been saved for that purpose. There will, probably in the majority of cases, be a margin between the money available and the estimated cost of building that will have to be arranged, and. it is here that the building societies and building investment companies should prove of exceptional value. It will be remembered that the British Government years ago adopted a plan whereby building societies were enabled to extend their operations. Recently the chairman of the British Building Societies’ Association, reviewing the prospects, said that lor a wliue they might have to build houses for letting because of the unusual circumstances, but he added: “I should like to see a scheme whereby we could foster .houses to let upon the footing that some part, however small, of the rent can be used as part of the purchase puce in the case of those tenants who arc desirous of buying. Iha is something we can do and which no one. else can do as effectively. ■\ frank realization that the same thing is possible here, uniting the efforts of the would-be owner, the building societies and the small builder, would surely achieve much to place the building of homes upon a sound and satisfactory basis.