THE NEW TOWNS

17

away if they can; several of the Corporations have had difficulty in disposing
 of their ‘ middle-class’ houses. Harlow, for instance, suspended con
struction of its Standard Two houses in July, 1954, as it found it increasingly
hard to let houses at more than 50s. a week; two houses rented at four pounds
per week had remained wunlet for about nine months. If Government
Departments had moved part of their offices to New Towns (as the Land
Registry is to go to Harlow), it would have been possible to get a far higher
proportion of salaried and clerical workers living in them.
At the other end of the scale, the proportion of unskilled workers, public
utility employees and people in the distributive trades remains below normal.
There are two reasons for this. First, the rents are too high in most cases
for a man earning six, seven or eight pounds a week—especially if his work
is of a kind where it is difficult or impossible to do overtime and thereby
raise his earnings. Secondly, since the majority of new residents are workers
who have moved with their factory, the percentage of skilled workers tends
to be far higher than in a normal residential district or than in the workingclass
 section of an industrial town.
The majority of residents, therefore, are skilled or semi-skilled workers,
earning between eight and thirteen pounds a week, and for the most part
employed in light engineering of various kinds. (Aycliffe, Corby, Peterlee
and the two Scottish New Towns differ, in this respect, but these are likely
to have even less balance.) This follows, of course, from the industrial
pattern which has been established.

Types of Industry

The greater part of the factory construction has taken place in a period
of re-armament and of restrictions on certain types of industrial development.
Priority has been’ given to firms producing, or capable of producing, for
defence contracts; location certificates from the Board of Trade and building
licences have been granted far more easily to firms making a contribution
towards the defence programme. All the Corporations have been making
efforts to offset this industrial bias, and during the last year they have had
rather greater success. The bias remains, however, and it is quite certain
that the New Towns need more plants producing consumer goods and
services, food processing, for instance, and also additional sources of employment
 for clerical, technical, women and juvenile workers.
This is not merely a matter for the Corporations. They have to interest
business concerns in their industrial premises, but their efforts are useless
anless they receive whole-hearted co-operation from the Government. The
detailed analysis of the industrial structure of the New Towns, may be found
in the annual reports of the Corporations. The essential point is that it is
both socially and economically undesirable for the New Towns to be too
dependent on one or two types of employment. If a proper balance is to
be secured, the planning powers which cover the location of industry must
be used much more vigorously, not weakened or abandoned as under the
present Conservative regime.
There is a further problem of balance which raises most interesting