TOWN-PLANNING IN ENGLAND

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26264, 8 November 1950, Page 3

TOWN-PLANNING IN ENGLAND

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL HAY’S COMMENTS

DEFINITE QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED “I am afraid the town-planning d s ease in England has not reached that experienced grade of planning which would be useful to. the country as a whole,” said Lieutenant-Colonel How and Fitz Gerald Hay, Deputy-Lieuten-ant of Devonshire, in an interview' las* evening. “If you are going to plan for other people you have to have some definite qualifications as a planner,” he said.

Lieutenant-Colonel Hay arrived in Wellington from England on Monday, and in Christchurch yesterday, accompanied by Miss Hay, he is a guest of Mr J. H. Rhodes, Riccarton.

“I suppose anybody who has taken up public body work conies up against problems. One of those is town-plan-ning,” Lieutenant-Colonel Hay said. One would hope that the town-pla i ning fever would die off, and people be able to build houses where they wanted to, provided it did not offend, or destroy beautiful parts of the countryside.

“If you are going to have town and country planning you want to have special schools to train persons with taste and ability.” Lieutenant-Colonel Hay said. “I do not think we are at the beginning of it. These sort of things are very much better left alone. What is true of town and country planning is true of other things. We are suffering from an inadequacy of engineers and surveyors because they are continually changing. “No End to Planning” One of the features of town and country planning was the zoning, int) shops, residences, factories, and so on, he said. Zones were laid down and they became in a short space of ti.ue the sort of thing which could not be altered. Then other factors arosj. Persons said they could not alter the plan, but sometimes things develooed quite differently. Another point about planning was that there was no end to it.' Planning depended to a large extent on the individual of the moment. That person was called away and the next person to take the positioif might have a different idea.

Before he went to Devonshire in 1938 Lieutenant-Colonel Hay had been commandant of the cadet force in Essex. He was asked to take over the cadet force in Devonshire and did so. Before the last war these cadet forces were voluntary organisations maintained by private funds. The forces became important soon after the outbreak of war, and were officially recognised by the War Office and the Governme.it Since the war the War Office had considered the forces would play their part in universal service. Lieutenaa*Colonel Hay said there was value in the cadet forces from every point of view. The boys were trained at an impressionable age in the qualities which England had always valued. In his time the cadet force in Devonshire had gone from 400 to more than 3duo in numbers. Lieutenant-Colonel Hay’s principal job in the war was to initiate the home guard course in Devonshire. He retired from the Army several years ago. In the First World War he was one of the artillery mission to the United States. This is Lieutenant-Colonel Ha/’sfirst visit to New Zealand. He recognised already it was a magnifleient country, he said. He thought New Zealanders were a people who were capable of putting their backs into anything they did.