Town Planning

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21026, 30 November 1933, Page 8

Town Planning

Mr D. G. Sullivan's complaint in the House of Representatives that, in consequence of the Government's failure to appoint a director of town planning in succession to Mr J. W. Mawson, town planning in New Zealand was becoming an " unutter- " able farce" would have been more effective if it hpd been more moderately worded. The absence of a director of town planning does not prevent local authorities from going ahead with town planning schemes or lessen their obligation to do so. On the other hand, Mr Sullivan might justly have complained that the Government's interest in town planning is regrettably languid and that little real progress will be made until a successor to Mr Mawson is appointed and until the legislation on the subject, now scattered through half a dozen acts, is consolidated and purged of obscurities. The Government, according to the Minister for Internal Affairs, is prepared to appoint a director of town planning "as soon as there is any real "need." The Minister means, apparently, that a director will be appointed when local bodies and the public take more interest in planning and when more planning schemes have been put under way. Eut it is just because the benefits of planning are so little understood in New Zealand that there is such an urgent and immediate need for the appointment of a director of town planning. No doubt a director can do much to assist in the preparation and carrying out of schemes. His most important function, however, should be to educate public opinion. When planning has become part of the normal activities of every local authority in the country it will be time to think about doing without a director; at present _ the whole planning movement is in danger of losing its impetus for want of supervision and guidance from the centre.