THE SPECIAL AREAS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 9

THE SPECIAL AREAS

BILL COMING SHORTLY

PROBLEM OF SOUTH-WEST

DURHAM

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, February 25.

The Government's Bill dealing with special areas will probably be issued early next week, and its discussion in Parliament will be preceded' by a debate on the financial resolution and by the issue of a Whit.c Paper reviewing what has already been done in this field, the scope of the work at present in hand, and undertakings for the immediate future.

A report presented last November to the then Commissioner of Special Areas (Sir Malcolm Stewart) by a firm of engineers, Sir Alexander Gibb and Co., on the situation in Southwest Durham is now made public. Its authors find themselves unable to put forward any comprehensive cure for the troubles which afl'ect this area of 140 square miles with a population of 170,000. These troubles are due to the collapse of the West Durham coal workings, and the authors of the report are unable to see any means of.securing effective industrial development there. In their opinion the area can only revert to its original and real role of agricultural land. The bulk of unemployed would have to be found work outside this area, where, however, some industrial development is feasible.

In publishing the report, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown) says it must not be assumed that the commissioner or the Government necessarily endorses the proposals contained in it.