Pre-fab housing the quick fix for crisis

I WRITE to you with regard to the ever-growing problem of the housing shortage, be it for young couples, homeless folk or the distressing situation with immigrants to our shores. There are of course many others.

At the end of the Second World War, most of our cities had been heavily bombed and the housing situation was grim. An urgent need for temporary housing had to be found. So, despite being bankrupt and with food rationing still in use, our country set to and built tens of thousands of ‘pre-fabs’, as they were called. They were small but perfectly adequate living units with a small garden where children could keep a domestic pet. The accommodation was in many ways superior by far to the houses that they replaced. Their great advantage was that they were rapidly assembled.

In 1951 I was a pupil at a Merchant Navy training school at Devonport. I remember one colleague lived with his family at a nearby estate. I visited him on several occasions and remember how impressed I was with the comfort of the house. At that time Plymouth was just a sea of Nissan huts whose businesses were struggling to get going again in temporary accommodation. A large store, I think it was called Dingles, was newly constructed, rising like a phoenix from the ashes.

With modern technology, those ‘pre-fabs’ could be put up where required in no time at all. Why on earth can’t we just get stuck in and do the job? We are spending astronomical sums of money on other questionable projects such as HS2.

Jeremy Paxman, with his wonderful University Challenge programme, uses the phrase ‘Let’s get on with it’.

I love our country but I do so wish with so many things, that we would stop ‘fluffing around’ and get the problem solved.

Derek Dawes

Falmouth