New town colours
Sir: It concerns me that correspond dents and for that matter column- ists write about Mr Walker's De- partment for the Environment as if it were exclusively concerned with airports and their development. If this Government is to be res sponsible for a great social advance then it is to a redirection of social policy from within the former Min- istry of Housing and Local Govern- ment that we must look. And if anything it is Mr Walker's initia- tives as Minister of Housing that will contribute more to the stan- dards of our community than an, albeit proper, concern for rural preservation. I do not wish to de- value his contributions to the en- vironment, but as he said at Black- pool, to most people the environ- ment is the four walls and the ap- palling domestic conditions that sur- round them. Perhaps we had better liberate individuals by contributing to the physical quality of their lives, and in that way extend the range of people's concern for the extraneous but soul-nourishing qualities. I think, therefore, I would more readily applaud such decisions as his extension of concern for the position of the coloured immigrant by asking the corporations of new towns to increase the number of coloured people moving to their areas, and reminding them of the need to treat all applicants for housing fairly, irrespective of col- our or racial origins. This, I would think, an excellent beginning for, as Mr Walker has said, except in Crawley the number of coloured people in new towns is very small. And, accepting that we now have a large permanent immigrant population, the remedy to the at- tendant racial problems is surely to encourage their settlement out- side the traditional immigrant areas.
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