GREYMOUTH HOUSES

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1945, Page 3

GREYMOUTH HOUSES

[to the editor.! Sir, —The agitation at the Progress League meeting by Mr. Pratt on the housing problem of Greymouth wants much consideration before the public are made to suffer for his ideas. He wants to push the Borough Council into taking on the pulling down of old houses and building new ones. Apparently it doesn’t matter about the high cost of present-day houses because perhaps all the working men and widows may have plenty of money to pay for, them. And hasn’t the Borough Council got enough things to attend to without going interfering with people’s houses? They cannot keep their roads and water channels in good order, or their swimming baths and Town. Hall and clock. What chance, then, of condemning houses and building at fancv prices? I have made inquiries and'Tind out that Mr. Pratt is not a ratepayer and may not be forever in Greymouth to see the town crippled in debt. If he told the Council how to keep their rates down to normal instead of being the highest-rated place in New Zealand, he would be helping the working people who have been living in Greymouth all their life raising families in comfortable but not flash homes and producing people as good, if not better than, in any part of New Zealand and Australia. One remark made at the League meeting about another subject' concerning people only five minutes in. the town, might well apply to the agitators for housing, and I say again, let the Borough Council attend to their own affairs and not to worry about interfering in the homes of the pioneers of Grey-mouth.--Yours, etc., “RAISED A FAMILY.’