Attractive Sites for Factories.
Page 6
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
London, as a manufacturing centre, grows, daily, greater and greater, and with that growth comes a congestion in space, and an increasingly heavy toll to pay for the privilege of establishing works at ail. Rates, too, are heavy, and it is not surprising that many engineering firms seek to set up a centre of activity in districts removed from the Metropolitan area. With the knowledge of the above facts before it, the First Garden City, Limited, of Letchworth, Herts., has opened up its property near that town, and a few notes on the scene of this industrial field may be of interest to our readers. The estate is 34 miles from London, a little way out of the tine of the great North Road. Although the railway facilities are good, and the factories are adjacent to a siding from the Great Northern Railway, it has been found that a motor wagon of medium speed is an economical method of transferring the daily output of manufacturers, and distributing it in and about London. The First Garden City is an estate of 3,818 acres, and is being developed as a self-contained town on pre-conceived economic and sanitary lines. Transformation has been effected on a scale seldom seen outside America, Two years ago the land was under the plough, with no railway station, water, or roads, and with a few farms and cottages as landmarks. It has now been developed, sewered, laid out with roads, supplied with gas and water mains, and a thriving community of 3,000 souls are accommodated with houses, of which there are nearly 600, including cottages, and there are, in addition, numerous shops, a new railway station, and public buildings—and progress still continues. Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co. are in the company of Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son, bookbinders, the Heatley-Gresham Engineering Company, which manufactures the " Rational" motorcab, and a group of other industries, including printers, asphalt makers, etc_ The population and the number of houses will, probably, be doubled during this year. An electric power station is being laid down for supplying the factory area, into which the sites for factories are concentrated. This area lies round the goods siding, gas works, and power station, and all round it are hundreds of acres on which cottages for the artisans and factory workers are being erected. These are flanked by shops and spaces for public buildings and recreation, and, further afield, there lie groups of better-class houses. Surrounding the whole, is a deep belt of agricultural land, which is to be reserved permanently as a lung for the town, which will he very necessary when it contains its estimated 30,000 inhabitants.
Careful study of the disadvantages under which most growing towns labour has led the Garden City Company to leave ample room for expansion in all the areas developed. Thus, there is room for a score or two more factories in the factory area, for thousands more cottages in the surrounding .area, and so on with shops and houses. This means that the particular facility required in each area can be easily and cheaply provided. The company, in its development, is providing roads, sewers, sewage farm, water mains, gas mains, .and an electric power station, which in many other districts are provided by loans repayable out of the rates, which are, consequently, high. At Letchworth the local rates are con
fined to Poor Law and Police services, and are about 35. in the pound. If with such rates, and these town facilities, land can be obtained for factories at a ground rent of from
to .4:20 per acre (or less than one penny per yard), on a long building lease, with an option of renewal, we make no apology for bringing Letchworth under review as pertinent matter for our manufacturing readers. The charges for electric power are from one penny per unit, and for gas power from 25. per thousand cubic feet, and an excellent and cheap water supply is at hand.
The Estate Company, limited in dividend to one of 5 per cent., is pledged to return to the inhabitants, in some beneficial form or other, the profits over this sum. This might be done by the provision of services usually defrayed out of rates ; but, however administered, the increment of value of the land will benefit the town and its industries instead of stifling progress. The labour supply is good at Letchworth, and the conditions are attractive to working men. Cottages to suit all types of labour are being erected by various organisations, and all have the advantage of cheap land in their large gardens, and the wide roads and open spaces which are in evidence. A hopeful feature about the new town is the varied character of the industries, which afford all-round employment to families. Many skilled mechanical industries have been jeopardised by removal into country districts where, although otherwise suitable, there has been no employment for the women folk, or other members of the family of the mechanic, and the supply of good labour has been desultory. We are glad to see that at Letchworth the employment for women is likely to be important in the printing and publishing trades, and this augurs well for the firms using, largely, skilled mechanical labour We publish views of the Heatley-Gresham Works, and a group of typical workmen's cottages. Letchworth can be reached within so minutes from King's Cross, and it is a pleasant outing to visit this " Garden City in the Making." The manager of the estate, Mr_ Gaunt, will be found willing and informative in regard to any further details desired by anybody who is on the lookout for a site.