BUILDING COSTS CUT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17950, 30 November 1932, Page 11

BUILDING COSTS CUT

METHODS IN ENGLAND WORKING TO TIME-TABLE Builders in Elngland have been seriously attacking the problem of costs, according to Mr. J. W. Graham, of Christchurch, president of the New Zealand Master Builders’ Federation. Mr. Graham has returned to the Dominion, having visited with Mrs Graham during tho last six months Canada, England, France, Italy and Australia. In England ho studied the building situation, and found that although costs we® still higher than before the war, steps had been, taken which had proved most effective in cutting down the price of construction of any particular kind of building. ‘‘Throughout the cities in the Homeland,” Mr. Graham said, “housing schemes arc still being energetically proceeded with. In England and Wales since the war more than £1,000,000,000 has been spent on the 1,500,000 houses constructed. A large proportion of these have been subsidised by the Government, and local authorities to the extent 'of £15,000,000 per annum. But in the present campaign for economy, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that he mu St substantially curtail expenditure, and it is now known that there is not likely to be any further Government assistance for buildings.

“Private enterprise, however, has devised means of reducing and meeting the needs of the various classes requiring housing, and already at the present time about two-thirds of tho total number of houses being erected are unassisted by subsidy. “There is a general demand for the removal, of Acts' such as the Rent Restriction Acts, which are rolics of the war and a great hindrance to development and the natural working of economic la\ys. There is also a strong effort being made to assist in the better hotisirig or tho poorer classes, also without reliance upon rates and taxes for finau.ee. “In London,” said Mr. Graham, “great economies are now made by the strict observance of a pre-arranged timetable of operations- It is estimated that the time of building has been reduced by from one-sixth to one-third. The system calls for inoro initial preparation and a complete organisation of work in advance.”