CARPENTRY TRAINEES UNDERTAKE VARIETY OF CONTRACTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 17, 30 January 1948, Page 4

CARPENTRY TRAINEES UNDERTAKE VARIETY OF CONTRACTS

Timber-workers’ cottages, rural housing on land development blocks, homes for textile workers, houses for hydro-electric workers, and even a postmaster’s residence, have been or are being constructed in various parts of New Zealand by rehabilitation trade • trainees as apart from their normal output on State rental housing contracts. At. Mang'akino, site of a township being built to house - workers engaged on the Waikato River hydroelectric scheme, a number of trainees are already employed, and more have expressed their willingness to follow. The trainees —now tradesmen—are employed by private contractors. The Department made it a condition that they must have already completed at least 18 months’ training and have attained classification. as all-round tradesmen up to State housing standard. This condition applies to all releases from training before the end of the normal training term of two years. Releases are made for work of national importance and trainees

have the right should they feel they need it, to apply for re-admission to a centre to complete their course. Forestry housing contracts have been undertaken with trainee builders in the Rotorua district, at Waikaremoana, and at Golden Downs, near Nelson. Over a year ago the trainee intake at the Rotorna Carpentry Training Centre was doubled to ensure a supply of trainees, half of whom following their four months’ indoor instruction do the remaining 20 months’ outdoor training on forestry housing instead of State housing work. The postmaster’s residence referred to, which was built by trainees, is at Brightwater, near Nelson. Here there had been no living accommodation attached to the post office, nor a separate residence, the only accommodation available having been an old, unlined corrugated iron hall in which the postmaster and his family lived in what were described as “primitive conditions.” The obtaining of an old mud-house did not relieve the situation. The postmaster’s housing worries are being solved by the provision of rehabilitation trainee tradesmen from Nelson to build him a suitable residence.