POST-WAR HOUSING

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23014, 4 October 1944, Page 8

POST-WAR HOUSING

Criticism In Britain LONDON, September 26. The part which the Church should play in the post-war planning of Britain is discussed in a report to the Church of England Assembly by a commission under the chairmanship of Sir Montagu Barlow, author of a previous report on replanning. The report deplores the “spiritual and cultural wilderness which have been spread like a red belt round so many of our cities and towns.” and the “soulless planning of big housing estates with no provision for community life.” The commission believes much of recent housing development fails to satisfy the basic psychological needs of men and women in at least four ways —by imposing limitations on family life through the restriction of domestic space, by lacking connection with man’s vocational life, by encroaching on leisure and by lacking facilities for natural community life and opportunities for solitude. The report expresses concern at the possibility of “skyscraper blocks of flats of eight to 10 storeys to meet the alarming continued increase of population in London and the Home Countries,” and the likelihood that the postwar needs of industry will require more workers to lead a “nomadic life.” It points out that employees of banks and firms such as chain stores, especially those who reached managerial grades, are increasingly transplanted periodically with little reference to their local attachments and domestic preferences. While admitting that these changes are sometimes necessary, the report declares that they are adverse to the development of responsibility and stability, both civic and religious. It believes the aim of full employment will inevitably spread these movements over larger sections of the community, particularly among the artisan class which, in the past, has done much to give stability to urban life. Temporary barracks must never be accepted as a solution for these movements of population, and if flats are built they should be of no more than three or four storeys, and be so constructed as to be suitable for children.