SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 July 1938, Page 5

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

SELF-CONTAINED VILLAGE IN SUSSEX RESULT OF ROTARY CLUB INITIATIVE (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 16. Mr Robert Bernays, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, opens next Friday a new community centre at Franklands Village, Haywards Heath, Sussex. The village is established on an estate of 45 acres with views over Ashdown Forest and is being developed by the Haywards Heath Housing Society Limited. The society was formed in 1933 through the initiative of the Rotary Club of Haywards Heath and is. believed to be the only housing society in England to have a completely selfcontained village. Each flat has its own garden and there is not a wireless pole on the whole estate, since every dwelling has its own concealed aerial in the roof. Recently an experiment tried with a type of self-cdntained flat consisting of one bed sitting room, bathroom, and kitchen, designed primarly for single women, has been a great success. The society was formed at a time when there was much unemployment, and when, owing to the withdrawal of the Government subsidy, the local authority had ceased to build houses for the working classes. The object of the Rotarians was, strictly on an economic basis, to provide employment for a hundred men and to produce dwellings which would set a higher standard for the district. This aim, it is claimed by the society, has been fully attained.