Progress in Housing The Housing Centre, whose new headquarters in
Suffolk Street were opened on Wednesday, is a volun- tary organization whose services in focussing attention on housing needs and housing possibilities should prove increasingly valuable to local authorities engaged in slum clearance schemes and soon to be engaged in new building schemes arising from the Overcrowding Bill. The slum clearance campaign. is already making very rapid progress. Mr. Geoffrey Shakespeare reported, on Tuesday, that the. local authorities are. now, .proceeding at a rate of clearance and rebuilding .equivalent to between 60,000 and 70,000 houses a year. The five-year pro- gramme required an average rate of 45,000 a year. Thus local authorities are not only making up the arrears of the opening period but getting ahead, and at the present rate the task should be completed in less than four years. The Ministry of Health is to be congratulated on the energy it has thrown into the campaign, and the local authorities on their response. The overcrowding pro- grammes are to follow. Co-ordination of effort is essential in the interests of efficiency, economy and good planning.
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