BUILDING BRITAIN'S HOMES

Chronicle (Levin), 30 March 1946, Page 4

BUILDING BRITAIN'S HOMES

f . f Some idea of the immense jhb faciag ithe building industry Britain was given recently by Leshe Merrion in a BBC interview. During ■the war a-hundred thousand hom6s were .eompletely destroyed in the London area alone, and there has been almost no civilian building ariywhere for six -years. Even before r the wai" there'i was s'thl a lot of relioifsihg to be done," and it is stHl waiting, pl-us maintenance ai$d repairs. Merrion estimates that Britain needs about four millisn hornes- — houses and flafe — and,. pf / course, that means more hospitails, . = sehools and shops as well. ; To taekle this colossal j ob, Britain has rather more than half a millipn building operatives, all told. Befc^e the war there were about a million, but this progf amme is going to need more like a million and a half. Tme b.alanoe of a million will have to he ■found 1-n two ways— apprentieeship and a new SGheme for intenSrye tra-ining of new entries to the industry. 'This scheme has been worked out 'by agreement between the Mihistry -of Labour, the employers and the building operators themselves. Under it -a man will have at least six months' trainin,g in a particular trade, and will then go on to m approved employer for fourtdfili ■months to get additional practieal experience. And when that is over he will be a f-ully trained man #i full union rates. But even with these special measures, taking normal wastage into consideration, Merrion consid|,ers that the building Industry will have to go all out for twenty years at least to catch up with arrears and cope with expansion. , . y