Between 1954 and 1980 Wingham Municipal Council operated an innovative housing scheme that provided finance for almost 400 homes within the town and enabled many young families to move into their own home.
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Despite the best efforts of Wingham Council to stop the forced amalgamation with the Greater Taree City Council in 1980 this, regretfully, meant the end of the housing scheme.
The 1954 Annual Mayoral Report summed up the scheme’s progress in its very first year:
“One of the council’s most successful projects during the year was in respect of its loan for home building. The sum of £15,000 was obtained and on loaned to 10 applicants. This scheme, if persisted with, should go a long way in remedying the position relating to sub-standard homes as well as materially assisting to develop the town.”
From this small beginning, the scheme did grow, and far beyond anyone’s expectations. By 1976, 307 homes, equal to 28 per cent of all homes in Wingham, had been financed by the council. By the time the scheme ended more than $5 million had been lent to build new homes in Wingham.
Local historian, Bill Beach, is researching the scheme’s history and would like to talk to anyone who used the scheme to build their home. Photographs of homes built under the scheme would be particularly welcome.
Bill is also trying to locate a plaque related to the housing scheme. In 1972 Sir Roden Cutler, the then Governor of NSW, visited Wingham to unveil a plaque commemorating the 200th house built under the housing scheme. The plaque was originally attached to one end of the brush box log, probably the predecessor to the present log, in Central Park but it now seems to have disappeared. MidCoast Council are not aware of it and it is not in the Wingham Museum.
If you know where the plaque is, or if you can help out with Bill’s research into the housing scheme, Bill can be contacted on 6553 4527.
