On This Day, 31 July 1918

Birmingham Daily Gazette

Wednesday 31 July 1918

HOUSING AND TOWN PLANNING.

BIRMINGHAM AFTER-WAR SCHEME OUTLINED.

CITY COUNCIL DEBATE.

Important questions on housing and town planning occupied the attention of the Birmingham City Council yesterday. The volume of business to be transacted was probably larger than at any previous meeting, and after a sitting of over four hours the proceedings were adjourned until to-day.

In moving that the Council approve of the Housing and Town Planning Committee’s recommendations with regard to the Government’s proposals for subsiding local authorities’ building schemes, and the assistances to be given them and to private enterprise for the erection of houses for the working classes, Mr George Cadbury, explained that the scheme laid down by the Government foreshadowed that in the first instance the cost of any scheme of housing by the local authority should be met out of funds raised by it. Supposing there was a deficiency on the scheme owing to excessive cost of building and other costs incidental to the war, the State should relieve the loan charges to the extent of 75 per cent, of the deficiency on the annual deficit, for a period of not less than seven years. At the end of the period there would be a final capital adjustment. The period for which the loans were granted would probably be long periods – eighty years for land, sixty years for buildings, thirty years for roads, and so on. Under special circumstances the grant would be increased above the 75 per cent, so as not to burden the Council with more than a penny rate.