TEN PER CENT. OF ENGLISH' HOMES INSANITARY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2595, 1 September 1909, Page 5

TEN PER CENT. OF ENGLISH' HOMES INSANITARY.

“The primary aim of the Housing and Town Planning Bill (writes Mr. G. Haw) is to stamp out the slum at one end and to save the suburb at the other. , . • , “Town-planning is put forward to save the suburbs. Increased inspection, and more stringent regulations are laid down as the means of deliverance from slumdom. ... “The need for a more drastic dealing with slum property is made clear by the fact that a careful estimate shows some 700,000 dwellings in England are either insanitary or overcrowded. In other words, 10 per cent, of the homes of England are a menace to public health. . “Again, the last census figures reveal 2,500,000 people living in overcrowded tenements. The further fact was brought out that nearly one-filth. c£ the entire population lived in tenements of one, two, or three tooie s. The real test of the housing provisions of Mr. Burns’ Bill will be the diminution in these figures shown in the census of 1911. . ' . _ “The principal defect m the Bill lies in its failure to provide for the better adaptation of existing houses. In many quarters the housing problem could he solved simply by adapting deserted middle-class houses 1 6 the reeds of working-class tenements. The very poorest, being the worst sufferers from slumdom, could not be helped in a better way than by the conversion of large houses into working-class flats. “As to the town-planning provisions ■of the Bill, here you . have an entirely new principle in British legislation. It is not new in practice in this country, however. Private examples of model town-planning have been springing'up in many quarters in recent years. Tbe incentive has come from the model villages of Bourneville and l Port Sunlight, from the Garden City movement, and from the excellent schemes of the Tenant Co-partnership -bodies.' “The Government proposals ought to work welcome changes in the methods of developing a city’s outskirts. Instead of allowing the suburbs to grow up in the haphazard, piecemeal system of to-day, a system that has produced around London places like Tottenham, Canning Town, and Brentford, the Bill empowers a local, authority to map out its undeveloped areas on scientific lines. Opeii spaces and recreation grounds must he considered before tho raids of the speculative builder. Several local authorities may co-operate in carrying out a town-planning scheme. “The idea of town-planning bv public bodies comes from Germany. Tho system there has undoubtedly raised the price of land and made the German working man’s rent , proportionally higher than is paid by the working classes in England. That danger can be avoided here if. the local authorities give effect to the whole of the townplanning proposals in the Government’g new Bill. They are empowered not only to plan out suburban estates, but to buy them. This power for purchasing land will, if wisely exercised, check speculation and prevent forced prices, for these are the things which ultimately have to be paid for in rent.”