LESS BUILDING ACTIVITY

Southland Times, Issue 24055, 20 February 1940, Page 6

LESS BUILDING ACTIVITY

Fewer Permits In December USUAL DECLINE AT END OF YEAR Building activity in December showed the usual decline associated with that particular month acceding to the Abstract of Statistics. The value represented by building permits issued in the larger centres during December was £593,963, a decrease of £90,916 on the total of November and a decrease of £112,363 on the December 1938 figure. Included in the December 1939 statistics are permits for the erection of 397 dwellings of which 206 were begun by the Housing Construction Branch of the State Advances Corporation. The number of dwelling permits issued in December 1938 was 384, of which 140 were for dwellings begun by the Housing Construction Branch. AGGREGATE VALUES The aggregate value of buildings represented by permits issued in the larger centres during the calendar year 1939 was £10,324,023, as compared with £9,186,994 in 1938 and £7,319,956 in 1937. Building acitvity in the larger towns as indicated by the permit figures, would appear to have slackened, considerably during the last three months of the year, but no doubt the transfer of tradesmen from normal building operations to construction work in connection with training camps and aerodromes, mainly in country districts, would be responsible for some measure of the decrease. The total value of building permits issued in the larger centres during the three months ended December 1939 was £1,938,374, as compared • with £2,514,761 in that period of 1938. Permits issued during 1939 for the erection of new dwellings totalled 6694, as compared with 5916 in 1938 and 4140 in 1937.