HOUSING AT HOME

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 236, 18 September 1934, Page 5

HOUSING AT HOME

Slum Clearance Progress

Evidence of the success of the British Government’s housing and slum clearance policy is contained in the annual report of the Ministry of Health lor 1933-34. In the twelve months; ended March 31 tho record total of 266,622 houses □ I a rateable value not exceeding £7B (£lO5 in .London) was completed. 01 these, 207,869 were built by private enterprise—another record figure. One thousand six hundred and seventy-nine programmes were submitted by local authorities under the five-year slum clearance campaign. These provide tor the demolition of 266.457 houses, with an estimated population ol 1,246,556, and for the erection ol 236,397 dwellings to replace them, and 559,129 houses were reconditioned. Since the Armistice, the report reveals, tho colossal toal of 2,328,385 houses, of a rateable value not exceed ing £7B (£lO5 in London) has been bui1t—1,177,863 with State assistance and 1,150,522 without State assistance. Of the latter figure, 908,924 were of a rateable value not exceeding £26 (£35 in London). These figures do not include replacement dwellings under the slum clearance schemes. Further figures show how the cost of building has fallen in the past three years. A non-parlour house which cost £3ll inJu no, 1932. cost only £286 last March—the lowest figure for that time ol year since the war. A tenement dwelling which cost £512 in Septern her, 1932, cost only £4OO last March The report also draws atton tion t: Hie growing public interest in town and country planning. On March 31 last, it is disclosed, over 12,15(1.(4)0 acres of land—nearly one-third of England and Wales —were covcrefl by planning schemes or resolutions.