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189
eliminate or reduce to a minimum the employment of those classes of skilled labour
of which there is the greatest deficiency.
The Committee (known as the Moir Committee) appointed in September, 1924,
by the Minister of Health (Mr. Wheatley) to enquire and report as to new materials
or methods of construction which were or might be available for the building of
houses, and to make recommendations as to the organisation required for securing
their adoption and use, issued during the year three intreim reports in which the
undermentioned forms of construction were dealt with:—
(1) Houses faced with steel plates.
(2) Concrete houses in various forms.
(3) Houses with a steel framework and various kinds of infilling or external
casings.
(4) (i.) Houses of normal timber construction built entirely of timber;
(ii.) houses with timber framing and infilling of various other materials.
(5) Schemes where factory construction might be possible in suitable
units and the work of assembly carried out on the site.
(6) Various forms of clay construction.
(7) Substitutes for particular materials, e.g., plaster, and for roofing
materials.
The Council on 21st July, 1925, approved the adoption of any of these
methods of construction in its housing estates.
The Council had previously experimented with houses built of concrete, and,
commencing in 1921, had built a considerable number of such houses of various
types.
The Chairman of the Housing Committee, accompanied by the technical
advisers of the Council, visited Scandinavia in August, 1925, to make investigations
into types of houses of wooden construction in use in those countries. As a consequence
purchase was made of some types of wooden houses which appeared to
be most suitable for use in England. These houses, 19 in number, and four
timber-framed houses of the Council's design, were erected on the Council's estate at
Becontree.
A number of houses of other forms of construction were also provided by the
Council during the year lor demonstration purposes at Downham and Bellingham.
Six of these were of steel construction (two each of the "Atholl," "Weir," and
"Telford" types), two were of steel and concrete ("Dennis-Wild" type), six of
wood and concrete ("Tibbenham" type), and four were constructed on the " Prefacto"
(Burney) system of blocks of a patented material known as "Factocrete"
and consisting of compressed wood fibre and cement. On completion, the experimental
houses were kept open for public inspection for from two to four weeks.
Simplified
type of
tenement
dwelling.
The question of providing a type of dwelling which can be rented by the poorer
classes of the community is a difficulty which continually confronts local authorities
carrying out slum clearance schemes. There is need for accommodation which will
span the gap that exists between the common lodging-house and the tenement
occupied by the more prosperous class of worker, and for which a lower rent can be
charged without upsetting the normal rent standard. The Council accordingly
on 26th May, 1925, decided to adopt a simplified type of construction of four-storey
dwellings, in which certain of the domestic offices are shared by two tenants. Each
family letting will have its own sink in a small scullery and its own water closet,
but the wash room and bath will be communal to the two adjacent lettings. A
proportion of one-room tenements will be provided of a bed-sitting room type,
suitable for the accommodation of single persons or aged couples without children.
These will be equipped like the ordinary living room and will have, in addition, a
metal bedstead to shut up during the day time in a ventilated recess, and also a cupboard
for hanging clothes, etc. The provision of dwellings of this type will, in the
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