AIR RAID SHELTERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1939, Page 7

AIR RAID SHELTERS

AIMS OF BRITISH POLICY WIDE EXTENSION OF LIGHT PROTECTION. HEAVY WORKS ONLY AT KEY POINTS. (British Official Wireless.! RUGBY, April 20. The Lord Privy Seal, Sir John Anderson. in a statement in the House of Commons today on deep shelter policy, intimated his decision, in accordance with the advice of experts, that it would be a mistake to attempt to provide bombproof shelters on a general scale. The Government, he said, would press on with schemes for providing for the largest possible number of shelters against blast splinters and falling debris.

He disclosed that already more than 300,000 of the Government’s steel shelters, capable of accommodating about 1,500,000 people, had been distributed, and it was expected that the distribution would henceforth proceed at an accelerated rate. In the meantime, technical advice would be afforded to industrialists and others for the construction of heavilyprotected shelters where there seemed to be a case for providing them for certain key points and certain vital services.

The report of the conference of experts, on which the Government’s decision had been taken, was completed after tests had been carried out on the problems of deep shelters. The experts rejected the bombproof shelters because of the diversion of effort from active to passive defence and the difficulty of constructing a shelter system which would guaranteed speedy and sufficient access and because of the time required in their construction. PERMANENT CAMPS. CARE . OF SCHOOL CHILDREN. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 20. The principal business of the House of Commons today was the consideration in committee of the Government’s camp Bill which facilitates the provision of permanent camps for school use in peace time and for evacuation purposes in war through the agency of non-profit, making companies. CIVIL DEFENCE PRIORITY IN UNITED KINGDOM. REQUEST TO ALL LOCAL AUTHORITIES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.37 a.m.) RUGBY, April 21. All local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland have been asked, on behalf of the Government, to arrange that priority is given civil defence matters. over all other business for the next three months.