XN000022-1976-11-15 — Page 11

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immobility of tenants;

once you had been allocated a flat,

usually at a very tight space standard, there you stayed regardless of what happened to your family size or to your income. Because they have been living in public housing for so many years at such very low rents, many families have I am glad to say become more prosperous and can afford, and want better, living accommo- dation than they have now. However, many of them cannot afford to rent or buy a flat in the private sector and still need some measure of aid to acquire a bigger flat. The Housing Authority is positively encouraging this sort of trading up by inviting families in this category who are living in unsatisfactory conditions in the old estates, to apply for higher-rent flats in the new estates, with their greatly improved standards. There

has been an encouraging response to this move and I am sure that the process will quicken as more and more tenants realise the Good sense of seizing this opportunity to improve their family life. But the advantages go much further than simply benefiting the outgoing tenant. By moving to a new flat he has released

a low-rent flat for reallocation to a less well-off family.

In the past when squatter families were being

cleared from Crown land needed for development, it was the invariable practice to rehouse them all as far as possible in the same newly- built estate and this reflected the administrative arrangements then in force by which clearance work was done by the same body managing the old resettlement estates; the family being cleared was given no choice, even if they could afford something better. Nowadays we try to be more flexible and when an area is cleared the widest possible choice of public housing is offered to the

clearees. Now some of these clecrees will not be able to afford

the higher rents charged for the much better type of accommo- dation provided in the new estates and for them the trading-up scheme which I have just mentioned provides a solution to their problems. The vacated flat, at a low rent, can be offered to them. This seems to be a sensible use of the Housing Authority's stock, covering as it does a wide range of rentals.

The Housing Authority