CHEAPER HOMES PROSPECTS IN BRITAIN

Evening Star, Issue 19760, 10 January 1928, Page 2

CHEAPER HOMES

PROSPECTS IN BRITAIN

AVJiafc is the right size in houses? And what is the most economical way of building them? Those are two questions that local authorities and the Ministry of Health must face, especially now that the subsidy has been reduced (states ‘Answers’). The trouble now is that many of the State-assisted houses built by local authorities are too expensive for ordinary working people. Many of them, indeed, are occupied by comparatively well-to-do folk. _ At the same time, there is very serious overcrowding in many working-class districts. To meet this difficulty several local authorities arc now building houses which are much smaller than those customary in previous housing schemes. For instance, Birmingham has a scheme, appio'ved by the Ministry of Health, for erecting small houses to be let at rents which even the poorest of the population cah pay. Other towns, such as Halifax and Newport, have been turning their energies in the same direction, and are providing small houses at rents of os and 6s a week. _ The general feeling among experts is that the smaller houses can give a sufficiently high standard of comfort if people are educated to use them properly. A scheme which should be studied by those interested in the provision of workmen’s dwellings has just been launched at Slough, in Buckinghamshire. The urban council is advancing £53,000 to a firm of building contractors to be repaid in thirty yearly instalments. The firm meantime is to build lo‘2 workmen’s dwellings. These are to be let at 10s 6cl and T2s 6d a week, tenants having the option of„buying them by paying an extra 2s or 2s 6d a week for thirty years. The contractors have agreed to "accept the council’s nominees as tenants for five years. The scheme has been approved by the Ministry of Health, and, it has been said, will not cost the ratepayers a penny.