Scheme to Overcome
p. 55 · Read in the full issue
Noumea’s Acute House Shortage
TO overcome the housing shortage in Noumea, Governor-General Cour narie has authorised the formation of a semi-official building society which it is expected, will have the backing of the Colonial Administration, the Munici pality, the Caisse Centrale of Overseas Prance, and the leading banking, indus trial and commercial houses of New Caledonia. The company is expected to operate with a capital of 25 million Pacific francs.
The need for such a move is apparent, rhe Noumean population has grown from 15,000 to 18,000 in the last five years, luring which period fewer than 150 new Iwellings have been built. Even before :he war, most buildings in the port were small and overcrowded and lacking in nodern conveniences. Magnificently situated and possessing one of the most favoured climates in the South Pacific, Noumea has a long way to go before it jan call itself up-to-date.
The new building society expects to fill i dual role. Firstly, it intends to build louses for sale or lease; and, secondly, t will make loans to persons wishing to )uy land and build houses of their own.
It is hoped to build blocks of modern hree or four roomed flats, 24 or 30 to a milding, which will be let at from 1,500 o 3,000 francs a month. A “garden city” or workers and employees whose incomes ire on a more modest scale is also con emplated. In addition, a matter of a mndred detached villas or houses in some if the most attractive suburbs is planned.
Local bodies seem agreed on the desir ability of the scheme, and the approval of the Caisse Centrale of Overseas France (known as CAIFOM) is now awaited.— H.P.
Miss Camilla Wedgwood, well-known anthropologist and lecturer at the Aus tralian School of Pacific Administration Mosman, expects to return to England in March or April to visit her family She says that she does not know what she is
going to do then. Miss Wedgwood, who has the right to use the title Honourable, acquired it in 1941 when her father, a British Labour MP, was made the first Baron Wedgwood of Barlaston.
One of the passengers on Lakemba, which berthed in Sydney on January 24, was Miss Marjorie Heath, of Lae, New Guinea, who has been visiting her brother in Canada,