NEW FACTORIES RISE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 256, 27 September 1945, Page 6

NEW FACTORIES RISE

(Special Correspondent.) (Rec. 11.0 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 26. ' As part of the planned reconversion of British industry from wartime to peacetime production, another 24 ofovernment factories have been allocated for civilian production, it is announced by the Board of Trade.

The number of British factories which have been returned to civilian use is now 117. They will provide work for nearly 250,000 people. It is also announced that three ordnance factories are to be used as trading estates. Building licenses for industrial premises have also been granted and, despite the housing shortage and the statement that all building workers are to be used on houses, 88 new factories are to be built. The majority . will be erected by private firms, but some will be built by the State and leased. They are all in what are known as the four “development” aYeas —NorthEast England, South Wales, West Cumberland and the Scottish industrial belt. It is anticipated that they will be ready in six or eight months. The Board of Trade’s reasons for building the new 1 factories are that most are in former distressed areas, where work rather than homes is the chief necessity and that the licenses have. gone to firms interested in exporting. Twenty-four factories have been turned .over to civilian production and will* begin the production of such things as radio sets, bicycles, machine tools, kitchen products and zip-fasteners. Three ordnance factories in Durham, Glamorgan and the Merseyside, which will be converted into trading estates for medium and smaller firms, will produce silk and rayon goods, plastics, cutlery, clothing and light engineering products.