HOUSING PROBLEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25866, 9 June 1945, Page 8

HOUSING PROBLEM

BRITAIN’S PROGRAMME

BUILDING TO BE RESTARTED RUGBY, June 7.

The news that permanent house building can now be restarted in Britain was given in the House of Commons by Mr Duncan Sandys, Minister of Works, who said the end of the war in Europe and the return of men and women from the forces and munitions works had made this possible. The Minister thought it should be possible during the next six months or so to put in hand the bulk of the first year’s programme of 100,000 permanent houses. The Minister added that the Government intended to maintain a close check upon distribution costs as well as on the prices of building materials themselves. The Minister’s statement was in reply to a speech by Mr Arthur Greenwood (Lab.), who. criticising the late Government’s housing policy, said that housing was the most gigantic problem on the home front. To-day Britain had a building industry of about one-third of what it was at the outbreak of the war. He said the late Government could not come to an agreement about the proper use of land for housing, and this meant a solution of the housing problem in Britain had been postponed for at least a decade. He asked for the early demobilisation of building workers for housing.