PROBLEM OF SLUMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21876, 11 August 1934, Page 16

PROBLEM OF SLUMS

NEW ERA IN HOUSING ACTIVITY IN BRITAIN [I'ROSI OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT] LONDON, July 6 The Council for Research on Housing Construction is an organisation greatly intent on tackling the great problem of slum clearance and indeed of building generally throughout Great Britain. The country seems to be on the eve of a new era in building an era in which new technique and products will gradually hut surely dispel the drabness of the existing masses of worn-out houses and their indescribable confusion. The National Government has announced a slum clearance programme, to erect some 70,000 houses a year for the next five years. The Ear! of Dudley, in an address recently, expressed a belief that people would be amazed at tho beauty, quality and efficiency of modern homes if only people could step beyond traditional conceptions, use a little more imagination, and mobilise themselves boldly to an urgent task. A study of the council's report would reveal the highly complicated nature of the housing problem, and he believed that no real progress could bo in ado toward the understanding of slum clearance until all its difficulties had been investigated and analysed in detail. Study had revealed the importance of tackling tho site problem on well-thought-out lines. Central rehousing required the settlement of dense populations on the spot, which could only be done by rehousing in multi-storey blocks. Every economy should be attained through simplification of design, through standardisation, and through the adoption of modern building technique. Mr. L. Silk in, chairman of the Housing Committee of the London County Council, said he considered that they had a definite mandate to dcnl with tho housing conditions of London with tho utmost energy, determination and courage, and they intended to carry out the mandate. Tho problem was beset with difficulties, but they were fortunate in the fact that they believed they had public opinion unitedly behind them in their task. Slum clearance was the biggest and most important of tho housing problems with which they had to deal. Tho problem in tho main would have to be solved, he thought, by the provision of block tenements inside London.

One's prejudices were against buildings going up as high as 10 storeys, said Mr. Silkin, but tho question had to ho viewed with an open mind and it might well bo that in tho course of investigations they would bo forajl to go beyond tho five storeys they at present contemplated. He felt that simplification of design was quito consistent with beauty of design.