Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Wednesday 10 December 1919
Houses Fit For Heroes
Bolton Council and a Sir Tudor Waiters Suggestion.
Mr. George Probert, chairman the Bolton upon Dearne Council, last night stated that sooner or later they would have to take up the question of private builders v. municipalities.
It was, he said, time another conference workers was called if the statement made on Monday Sir Tudor Walters was right.
The Clerk (Mr. J. Ledger Hawksworth) said Sir Tudor Walters in his speech suggested that private builders could build at per house less than public authorities. If that was so asked what had the Government been doing to allow the profiteering that stated was taking place in regard to the production of material, and also with respect to builders and contractors. It was profiteering in the worst sense, and suggested that the Government ought to have made a war grant to local authorities who should then have been called upon to make their housing schemes self-supporting. Instead of that, the Government were now at the mercy of every local authority in the country. That such a scheme he had suggested was practicable was proved by the Bolton Housing scheme which was now self-supporting.
Councillor Williams said there may be some truth in Sir Tudor Walters’ statement, but he was referring to the 50 or 60 houses to the acre schema. If that was his conception of houses fit for heroes to live in, it was not theirs at Bolton.