HOUSING
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80 Then next there is housing. We must ensure that
there is self-contained housing in a reasonable environment
for all. The current programme was started between five
and six years ago. All the laborious work of site
acquisition, preparation, design and construction, is at last reaching fruition, and completions will rise from 18,000
flats this year to 45,000 next year and will bema in ta ined between the 40 and 45,000 levels until 1985. That is
to say housing each year for about a quarter of a million
people. Construction is now proceeding on no less than
57 projects with a contract value of over $2,200 million.
These figures include the flats for purchase under the
Home Ownership Scheme at present planned to average about 6,000 a year as from next year when 8,500 will be
completed. In view of the popularity of the scheme,
we must be alive to the possibility of varying the
balance between the programmes for renting and sale
in the light of public demand, and the design of
new estates provides for this degree of flexibility.
8
Our approach to the level of public housing
production towards which we have been working for
so long, has coincided with a spurt in the construction
of flats by private developers, many for the middle