HOMES FOR RAILWAY WORKERS

Evening Star, Issue 19615, 22 July 1927, Page 10

HOMES FOR RAILWAY WORKERS

Some few weeks ago tho _ Mosgiel Borough Council wrote the Prime Minister asking that negotiations be resumed regarding the settlement of some of the railway workers who are to come to Hillside next year from Addington on land near Mosgiel railway station. Tho following reply has been received by the council “ I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of tho 13th inst., and have carefully noted the representations made by your council suggesting that the Government reopen the question of resuming tho block ol land fronting Mosgiel Junction railway station, in order to provide housing facilities for the surplus workshop employees that will be transferred from Addington. In reply, 1 have to inform you that I shall be pleased to arrange for the matter to have careful consideration and will communicate with you at an early date. —J. G. Coates, Minister for Railways.” An esteemed correspondent, who has interested himself in the welfare ol workers generally, and aided in many humanitarian schemes lor many years, writes: —“I am pleased to know that the Mosgiel Borough Council has agreed to revive the project of tho acquisition of tho block of land adjoining the Mosgiel railway station. Though the Government turned down the proposal some time ago, I. am now hopeful that under the changed conditions they will bo able to look more benevolently on a project that will make lor tho prosperity of the borough to a greater extout'than anything that has been proposed up to the present. The lay of tho laud, the proximity of church and school, tho easy subdivision of the land are factors that ought to weigli in tho balance and cause the scheme to materialise at an early (late. _ Seeing that a largo number of families are to be sent down next year from Addington they ought, for patent reasons, to be given the best possible living conditions, and I affirm without any reservation whatever that no site in or near Dunedin has tho natural advantages possessed hy this particular block. Given reservations for children’s playfields, for a communal cinema house, and for a library, I can envisage the day when, with the advent of electrically driven trains (suburban), the site in question can bo transformed into a veritable garden city in which will reside a healthy, virile, and happy population.”