A LOSS OF £2,320,000,000.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16425, 8 May 1924, Page 8

A LOSS OF £2,320,000,000.

LA MOB HOUSING FLAN CRITJ CTSED.

MANCHESTER, March 25. The Prime Minister's suggestion that £SOO houses, to the number of 200,000 every year, should be built and 1 let at an inclusive rent of 9s per week each ay a, contribution lo the solution of the housing problem, was subjected to careful examination by Mr. Norman McKellen, secretary of the National Federation of House Builders, to-clay. "It lis very necessary that this policy of the Prime .Minister's should be very carefally considered," said Mr. McKellen. "I think it is regrettable that the standard' of 9s a week should 'have been set up officially by the Prime. Minister, because, although the figures must be taken as giving merely a general idea of the intended Government policy, they would, in actual working, prove to be impossible.

"To build 200,000 houses yearly at £SOO each and let them at 9s a week each, inclusive of rates, would invodve a loss of £29 on each house for every year of the next 20 years. The loss to be met bv taxes or from the local .rates, commencing at £5,800,000 in the second year, would increase until, in the twentieth year, the charge to the public purse would be 110 millions, and in the end the total loss, national and' municipal, would amount to the gigantic figure of £2,320.000.000. ""This calculation is based on the fact that the economic rent of the £SOO house, with a sinking fund as required under' the. present "Housing Act, is £44 a year; but the inclusive rent of 9s per week is only equal lo £23 8s per annum. from which' must b e deducted £8 8s for local rales, leaving a net rent of only £ls per bouse, varying slightly in different localities. . 1 am persuaded that the £SOO house'for 9s a week is not rightly understood by the public. It is impossible for any Government or country to solve the. housing problem al that rate."