SLUM CLEARANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 63, 12 September 1939, Page 11

SLUM CLEARANCE

HOUSING IN BRITAIN

HEALTH MINISTRY'S REPORT

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London Representative.)

LONDON, August 17.

The British Minister of Health, Mr. Walter Elliot, has published a return showing the progress of housing and slum clearance during the six months ending March 31, 1939, and the position at that date. The return shows that during the half-year ending March 31, 1939, 173,376 houses were built in England and Wales, bringing the total number built since the Armistice up to 3,998,366.

The number of houses provided by private enterprise, without State assistance, in the half-year was 116,125, which was 5841 more than the number in the preceding half-year. During the year ending March, 1939, private enterprise, without State assistance, provided 226,409 houses, compared with 257,081 for the year ending March, 1938. On the other hand, during the same year local authorities provided 101,744 houses, compared with 77,970 in, the year ending March, 1938, so that although unassisted private enterprise produced 30,672 houses less than the year before, local authorities produced 23,774 houses more than the year before.

The total number of houses produced by all agencies during the year ended March, 1939, was 332,360, compared with 337,602 in the preceding year.

The proportion of new houses provided by private' enterprise for letting continues to grow slowly. In the half-year ended March 31. 1939, of the houses buiJt by private enterprise with rateable value not exceeding £13 (£2O in Greater London), 46.4 per cent, were built for letting, as compared with 45.2 per cent, in the preceding half-year.

The effective progress being made in slum clearance is shown by the number of houses demolished and the number of new replacement houses built. Up to March 31. 1939, 273,390 houses had been erected for rehousing persons displaced from unfit houses, and of these 42,085 were completed during the half-year e.nded March 31, 1939 During the half-year 38,064 houses were either demolished or debarred from human habitation, bringing the- total of such houses at March 31. 1939, up to 272,836.