The Bottleneck of Housing
Page 25
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Road Transport of Bricks the Difficulty: There Will Not Be Enough Lorries to Do the Work. A Solution Suggested
By E. B. Howes,
Chairman, A. Saunders and Son Co-operative Croup THE debate on the Government's Hoasing Policy which toOk place last week was anything but reassuring to those who are concerned in the matter. Neither those who, as to themselves, have no place to live, or their relatives and friends in the Services who will shortly want homes, can feel in any way assured -that the houses are going to be there.
There are plenty of promises of energetic action, but little indication that the problem is being tackled in a practical manner. Abstract theories abounded, concrete proposals • were few„ One factor was entirely overlooked: the vital part which road transport must play in any project of house building. Its importance is such that, if it be left unconsidered or under-estimated, any plan for wholesale building will certainly go adrift.
Here are some figures aa a basis for discussion. Assume that it is hoped to build.100,000 houses in a_year, also that 20 per cent, are of the prefabricated type—an outside esti mate M. my opinion. That leaves 80,000 brick-built dwellings. Prefabricated houses will, in any rase, also. involve the use of road transport, and it is possible that this type will aggravate rather than ease the difficulty I have in mind.
Houses of the•Council type, and they will' probably form the majority, require some 40,000 bricks per house, so that there will be required no fewer than 3,200,000,000 bricks, or -about 10,000,000 per working day.
Taking fiettons as a basis for weight per thousand, this is approximately 2/ tons, the average lorry load is 2,500 bricks, usually carried by 'the popular type of 6-ton vehicle largely used for this traffic, Some bigger machines are operated, but. they are used chiefly for medium to longdistance hauls, and are so few in comparison with the total as hardly to affect this calculation. •
Now the number of journeys per day enters the picture. On ultra-short journeys four. to five trips can be Made, but comparatively rarely. An average of three per day,is optimistic. Three mean' the conveyance of 7,500 bricks per day per vehicle, so that 1,400 Vehicles will be required --to carry the bricks atone. Add another 600 for the rest of the building materials which are required for a house—timber, cement, plaster arid . sundries-250 for the. prefabricated houses, and we get al total of 2,250 lorries per day to keep the builder supplied so that he will not have to stand idle, These vehicle.s.will be required at a time when, to keep industry as a whole moving.at the pace at .which .it must move, in the years immediately following, the return to peace, the demand for road' transport. is expected to be greater than it has ever been before.
Handling Bricks a Specialist's Job
Nor is that all the story. Labour,' too, enters into the problem. Not every driver or. mate knows how to handle bricks; that is a specialist's job. Two good men, can stack a lorry load of 2,500 bricks in 40 minutes; two inekperienced men might take two or three hours, thus losing at least one load per day and diminishing the total of bricks delivered by 331 per cent, correspondingly aggravating the vehicle shortage.
There will, therefore, not be enough lorries, drivers or mates to deal with the traffic. There might have been but for the GoVernment's successive acts of repression-against road haulte, first through the short-sighted perversion Of the intentions of the Road and Rill Traffic Act, whereby many operators with legitimate claims for preference were forced out, chiefly at the wish of the railways; secondly, as the result of various restrietive regulations passed. during
• the war; and thirdly, the dperation of the Ministry's Road Haulage Organization. It will not be possible, by more 'extensive use of the. railways,. to alleviate this trouble to any appreciable extent.
Apart from the fact that the railways, like the roads, may be ovdrwhelmed with traffic, it is also the case that road transport is to be preferred for bricks. When they are carried by rail there is a greatly increased percentage of breakages as compared with carriage by road.
The effect of breakages is more far reaching than the layman could possibly believe. A bricklayer can lay 1,000 bricks per day, provided the bricks be whole and in good condition; the effect of breakages is often sufficient to reduce his ability to lay bricks by as much as 30 per cent. He may lay only, .600 bricks'in a day because of delay in selecting good bricks and in squaring up corners of brOken ones, which be must endeavour to use if he can. .
In any event, all but a minority of rail-carried brick,. must eVentually. complete their journey by 'road. New housing sites arenot being' selected with a railway, siding running through the middle of them, so that although, by using the railways, some of the road journeysmay be shortened, the aggregate effect on the number of lorries required will be almost negligible.
Unless something be done, therefore, we are faced with the likelihood of a repetition of the situation which arose immediately .after the, past war, Then bricklayers in their thousands were standing idle for days because there were no bricks available on the lousing sites; 'they had no bricks to lay.
Why not Dump Bricks Now?
There is a simple remedy. The bricks are now available in large. quantities. Brickyards aretloked 'with them Many sites for housing estates have been chosen and are vacant, Why not begin 'no iAi to transfer the bricks from the yards, t' the sites, and build up stocks against the timewhen -the bricklayers are available to lay them?' All that is needed. is 'permission for any •suitable-lorry Which is at any time available for thatpurprase, either because of temporary local 'shortage of traffic, 'o'e When on a return journey which -would -Otherwise be empty, to carry a load of bricks from a yard to the site 'of a holising estate. This could be done with very little organization if the will to do it be there 'and if someone will make an attempt to p/an it.
I can claim to speak with authority on this matter. I have been hauling bricks for nearly 10 years, The A. Saunders (Harpenden) Co-operative Group was formed to deal . with the ever-growing volume of • brick trac which was•being offered in and about the Harpenden district My company, A. Saunders and Son (Harpenden), Ltd., together with the Co-operative Group, carried 103,000,000 bricks in 41 years—enough for upwards of 2,500 homes of the type we have in .mind.
if my simple plan be followed there will be, when the bricklayers are ready to start, a number of sites already well stocked with bricks, ,sufficient to keep the bricklayers busily engaged for weeks,even months, during which time, with careful organization, the stocks can be replenished, not sufficiently rapidly to maintain the otiginal stock but quickly enough to ensure that no bricklayer stands idle for lack of bricks to lay..
While the Ministry is tackling this job.it might take steps to obviate the risk of any victimization of hauliers when doing this essential work. The Minister should take steps to correct the omission made in S.R.O. 1943 No 147, the Emergency Powers (-Defence) Bricks (Prices) Order," By that Order prices of bricks were standardized, and, in assessing them, the maximum charge to be Made for delivery was included, No provision was made, however, that the brick manufacturers or factors should pay the brick haulier the whole of the amount thus allowed: Let the Minister, rectify that ornission, and 'stipulate that the haulage rates thus quoted shall he the minimum net amounts which the haulier. shall receive for the conveyance of bricks in the localities named and over the distances specified.