§ Mr. Isaacsasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the special difficulties in connection with the area known as the Elephant and Castle area in the Borough of Southwark, he will reconsider his decision with reference to the proposed underground air-raid shelter at Roy Place?
§ Sir J. AndersonI am not aware of any considerations peculiar to this area which would call for the construction of a shelter of the type which the local authority put 419W forward for my consideration. It is clear, however, that additional public shelter is needed in this area, and I trust that the local authority will consider further a plan on alternative and more economical lines which has already been communicated to them informally by my technical advisers.
§ Mr. R. Gibsonasked the Home Secretary how many proposals for heavily protected air-raid shelters he has received from Scottish local authorities; how many of these were for deep shelters; how the proposals have been dealt with; and what was the regional distribution of the local authorities concerned?
§ Sir J. AndersonI am advised that there have been proposals from five local authorities, namely Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Greenock, and North Queens-ferry. All involved the utilisation of some existing natural feature. In the case of Glasgow and of Greenock, the projects have not taken more than a very tentative form, while in the case of Edinburgh, certain objections were conveyed to, and apparently accepted by, the City authorities. The North Queensferry proposals, were rejected on the ground that the shelters would have been too remote to be reasonably accessible to those for whose protection they were designed. The Dundee proposal was approved by my Department, but I understand that other considerations have led the local authority not to pursue the matter further.