1957-1958 — Page 19

Housing Assistants who are specially trained in their duties) in order to check the particulars given, and collect further relevant information. By 31st March, 1958, 6,971 of these visits had been made, in addition to 5,560 personal interviews given at the head office on points of difficulty.

SITES

As can easily be imagined by any one with a knowledge of the local terrain, one of the main difficulties experienced by the Authority is the lack of suitable building sites. Indeed, sites where expensive and prolonged site formation is not involved are now virtually unobtainable within the urban area, where most of the people to be rehoused must be accommodated, so as to be near their places of livelihood. It is thus self-evident that land within the urban areas, or at least the more acces- sible parts of it, must not be sterilized by cheap single-storey housing, and therefore vertical development, in the shape of multi-storied flats, has been accepted as the only solution to the problem. This is not the ideal form of dwelling, and is relatively expensive to construct: in addition the maximum densities permitted in the United Kingdom and elsewhere must be considerably exceeded if sufficient accommodation is to be provided with the limited land resources available. The Authority's long-term plans envisage the eventual provision of 5,000 housing units a year, and to meet this target it has had to accept nett densities of 1,500 or more persons to the acre (which would be regarded as slum densities elsewhere in the world) but even on this basis it has not been easy to find land.

A very close liaison is maintained with the Public Works Department in the search for suitable sites: when located, and if found available, these are reserved by Government for development by the Authority, pending the outcome of successful negotiations with regard to price of the land, and the drawing up of plans for its development. It is often found that the sites are occupied by squatters, and their clearance by the Resettlement Department (which has been found most co-operative in this respect) is often a tedious and lengthy matter.

In August 1957, as a result of visits paid by members of the Sites & Buildings Committee to sites provisionally reserved for the Authority's use, it was decided to withdraw reservations from certain sites where formation work would have been both extensive and costly.

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