FLATS VERSUS COTTAGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 April 1938, Page 4

FLATS VERSUS COTTAGES

PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS The problem of flats versus cottages is still being keenly discussed, as was proved in the housing estimates debate in the Commons. Sir Percy Harris, M.P., an authority on the question, made the following significant remarks, reported in ‘Public Opinion’: “I speak from some practical knowledge of the subject as a member of the London housing authority for 28 years and as the representative of a working-class district with which I have been associated for 30 years. I can assure hon. members that the people themselves feel very much .on this question.

“Many people have told me that they prefer their dirty old houses and back gardens, where they can keep a rabbit or two and some poultry, to the most lovely flat with a modern bathroom. They may be quite wrong, but that is 1 their point of view, and after all we are a democratic assembly and have to consider the people for whom we are spending the money.

“I was responsible, I think, foi clearing the first slum area in London We cleared away some of the worst houses in dark courts in London and put up a beautiful new estate of houses with bathrooms. I went down to the place with a good deal of pride, expecting to get praise, but instead my old ladies greeted me with a great deal of abuse and told me to leave their houses alone.

“We have, of course, to get new ideas into their minds, but at the same time we do not want to make London like Continental cities, a place entirely of flat dwellers. When you go into a continental town you see nice broad streets and big buildings, and are duly impressed, but when you go inside you do not find the same individuality and independence which is a characteristic of our English people and our London working man, which I hope will be a characteristic for all time to come.

“It is, of course, more expensive to put up flat dwellings, because the walls have to be thicker, floors of concrete, everything of strong construction and substantial against fire. On the other hand, the cottage has thinner walls and is much less costly per room to build.

“The problem is that when you clear away a slum the majority of the people want to live on the same spot, and although you plan your area properly you cannot get all the people back on the site in cottages, and you have to put some in block dwellings.”