'Cheaper solutions needed to housing backlog'
'Cheaper solutions needed to housing backlog' April 17 2007 at 04:48AM By Anel PowellAlternative building materials could alleviate many of the structural problems at the N2 Gateway development, says Richard Dyantyi, MEC for local government and housing.Speaking at the opening of a two-day conference on innovative building methods on Monday, Dyantyi said: "The conventional system of brick and mortar has proved to be costly and in relation to the rate at which the backlog is increasing, to no longer be a viable option." At a weekend public meeting, Dyantyi admitted to residents of the N2 Gateway development that work on some of the houses was sub-standard. He said work on the second phase would continue once the problems in the first phase had been solved. Dyantyi said on Monday that the N2 Gateway could be one of the sites identified for a pilot project of alternative building methods.He said structural problems, such as those at the N2 Gateway, were caused by incompe