New Houses and Old
Mr. Harold Macmillan will be wise to give as much attention to the repair and reconditioning of old houses as to the con- struction of new. That counsel, given by the Sanitary Inspectors' Association to the Minister, is undoubtedly sound. But the problem of payment for the repairs is baffling. So long as a land- lord is bound by the Rent Restriction Acts he is liable to be actually out of pocket if he carries out the work which needs to be done for the preservation of the property. The result, accord- ing to the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Sur- veyors, who was speaking on the subject on Monday, is the Post-war deterioration of millions of houses. Tenants, no doubt, need to be protected, but so do landlords ; at present grave injustice is being done to the latter for the benefit of the former. Sonic modification of the Rent Restriction Acts is plainly necessary, in spite of the party capital Labour may be expected to make out of such a move ; it is fantastic that rents should Still be limited to the 1939 (in some cases even to the 1914) figure, Even modification will go only part-way towards a solu- tion of the problem. But it is obviously poor economy to build new houses and let old ones rot.
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