Build 1m homes? It’s just a fantasy
BUILD A million houses in five years? Do our politicians think before they make these wild proclamations (Mail)? In the past five years, we’ve built between 83,000 and 133,000 houses a year. I am an ex-contract plumber, and most other tradesmen I meet say they would like to be involved in building a few more homes, but they laugh off the increase our politicians promise. The proposal is that we build an extra 150,000 houses a year: does any one of our illustrious leaders have any clue as to where the extra labour will come from? The tradesmen we’re talking about take up to eight years to train. When you talk of more plumbers, we’re not talking about the chap who puts in your new bathroom. The ones needed are those who can produce high-speed, good-quality work in houses and apartments with the minimum supervision. So to achieve this number of new homes we will need another 125,000 plumbers, 200,000 bricklayers, 240,000 carpenters, 400,000 roads/ drainage workers, 130,000 electricians, 250,000 painter/decorators, 150,000 dry liners, 150,000 plasterers and 150,000 roof tillers. Then there are the extra floor tilers, kitchen fitters, site agents, quantity surveyors, site surveyors, security staff and sales staff. That’s about 3.5 million extra over and above the numbers we have already. Don’t get me started on the technical colleges needed to train this workforce or the materials required for this expansion. We once had a forest of brickwork chimneys in nearby Bedfordshire and three cement works not 30 miles from here — but no more. It’s on record that in 1969 we built 465,000 homes — I know because I was there. But selective employment tax (SET) decimated the building trade because people went self-employed and apprenticeships disappeared. Some people think you can train a tradesman in six months, but ask any builder (or homeowner) if they want to switch on the water in new house and have it look like the Trevi Fountain. A running progress report from this point onwards could be read as avidly as the football league: ‘Oh dear, they missed this month’s target by another 100,000 houses. Something about inclement weather’. Read this and weep.
PETE ORCHARD, Twyford, Oxon. PERhAPS prefabs might be the shortterm answer to the housing crisis. At the end of World War II, it was estimated that 200,000 houses needed to be built rapidly to replace the accommodation destroyed by enemy bombers. For the short term, these first prefabricated houses seemed the ideal answer. They were manufactured off-site in standard sections which could be easily delivered and assembled: 1.2 million homes were created between 1945 and 1951. These days, with more houses having prefabricated parts, this number could be erected even more quickly. The original prefabs were supposed to be only a stop-gap before traditional accommodation could be built and were expected to last no more than ten years. The fact that, even now, 60 years later, many are still standing, is a tribute to their sturdiness and popularity.
Mrs SONYA PORTER, Woking, Surrey.