Английский язык. Кузьменкова Ю. Б.

Render the text or answer the following questions. Time limit: 10—12 min.

On housing

A variety of housing has been provided in new towns, including two-storey houses, bungalows, flats and maisonettes. The greatest demand is for houses with gardens. Many families moving to the new towns have previously lived in overcrowded conditions in flats or rooms in the centres of cities and want the space and freedom of a house and a garden where children can play in safety. In view of this preference, care is taken to provide houses of varied architectural types, avoiding monotony and ensuring privacy. Houses may, for example, be built in courts, closes, terraces or other groupings and set at various distances from, and angles to, roads. A number of materials such as bricks and cements of differet colours and panels of natural timber are also used.

The houses usually have two or three bedrooms and one large or two smaller living rooms, though a number of larger and smaller dwellings are also provided; all have kitchens and bathrooms with hot and cold running water and inside lavatories. Many have central heating and broadcast relay systems whereby radio and TV programmes are received at a central point and distributed by wire to listeners and viewers. At Washington the development corporation has designed a two-storey house which can be adapted to meet the changing needs of growing families: the house has all the traditional living areas complete on the ground floor and an upper floor free from dividing walls and with windows and plumbing arranged to enable householders themselves to provide room areas to meet their requiremets.

In housing areas, landscaping with trees is considered to be particularly important, and many acres of woods have been planted on poor farmland and bog.

Densities in the new towns vary — the average being about 15 people to an acre. The consultant planner for Welwyn Garden City, for example, believed it important to maintain existing trees and shrubs and to blend the new buildings in with them. In this way the town was developed at low density. Cumbernauld and Skelmersdale, however, are examples of towns planned at a higher density as compact urban units with the emphasis on the town centre as the hub of the new town.

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