54. Mr. DUNDAS WHITEasked the President of the Local Governmeit Board whether he can specify any rural areas where cottages are required and suitable sites for such cottages can be obtained on satisfactory building leases at rents equivalent to a halfpenny per week per cottage site?
§ The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns)A halfpenny per week, with twelve houses to the acre, means that land is purchased at about £35 per acre. As my hon. Friend is aware, plenty of land in agricultural areas suitable as sites for building agricultural labourers' cottages is sold at that price—and less—every year. Some 995 was purchased compulsorily by a local authority in Norfolk under the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909, only the other day at less—£31 4s. an acre. I am not in favour of the leasehold system in connection with the provision of cottages for working men, and in my experience it is rarely resorted to.
Mr. DUNDAS WHITECan the right hon. Gentleman say if that was the foundation of the general statement that he made the other day?
§ Mr. BURNSThat and a number of other cases. If my hon. Friend will look at the 1912 Yearly Sale Book, Prices of Land, he will find that land in rural areas has been sold for as little as £16, £18, £24, £25, and up to £35 per acre.
Mr. DUNDAS WHITEIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that I was asking with reference to land suitable for cottage building?
§ Mr. BURNSThe land to which I applied the remark which I made in my speech on the Housing Bill was an actual concrete case of an application made to me to build cottages in the county of Norfolk.
§ Mr. WEDGWOODDoes the right hon. Gentleman think that houses planted twenty to the acre are suitable?