WORK HELD -UP
Building strike slows Liverpool project
Catholic Herald Reporter THIS week's building strike has hit work on -I. the new Liverpool Cathedral but has not brought it to a complete standstill.
The National Federation of Building Trades Operatives claims that 200,000 men on almost 1,000 building sites have come out on strike.
On the cathedral site, 140 --joiners, scaffolders, steel-fixers and labourers have stopped working, but there is some work being continued by members of unions not involved in the strike.
A spokesman for the Taylor Woodrow building company told me: "Obviously one week's production will he lost, but this strike isn't long enough to cause a serious delay in the Cathedral's completion—scheduled for late autumn of 1966."
He said it was impossible to say at this stage what extra cost the strike would put on the Cathedral building bill.
When work on the Cathedral was started in 1961, it was estimated the total cost would be £1,000,000. The design, by London architect Frederick Gibberd, was selected from 300 entries in an architectural competition sponsored by Archbishop Heenan.
It allows seating for some 3,000 people, with the high altar in the centre. Its circular shape. 350 feet diameter sweeping to a central tower more than 300 feet high, is a decisive break from the traditional long, narrow English cathedral plan.