The Press FRIDAY. JULY 6, 1956. Regional Planning

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28013, 6 July 1956, Page 10

The Press FRIDAY. JULY 6, 1956. Regional Planning

The need to establish an urban fence round Christchurch and the difficulty of deciding just where it should run were both made plain at this week’s meeting of the Regional Planning Authority. On the one hand, ribbon development is running far along highways out of the city: and even within the urban fence as now designed, public utilities cannot be supplied to all land for many years. On the other hand, the Railways Department wishes to make the maximum use of the Sockburn-Styx loop line for industrial sidings beyond the fence, and the Halswell County Council objects to the county being placed outside the fence. It was something of a triumph for reasonableness that these conflicting issues did not split the authority into ■ hostile factions. The acceptance by ' Mr J. MacKenzie, the Halswell representative, of the authority’s invitation to suggest an alternative line for the urban fence inside his county was an admirable compromise. It is one thing for the Halswell County Council to object to the authority’s proposal; defining another defensible line will be quite a different matter, giving the council an exercise in the difficulties of planning. The council may have to come back to the Hornby solution of a separately planned satellite area ringed by its own urban fence. The Railways Department’s objection is a different matter, because the principal value of the urban f ence at that end of the city is to keep the approaches to the Harewood airport clear. This problem may well be taken out of the authority’s hands by legislation to protect airports generally. Such a statutory provision, now being discussed by the Minister of Lands (Mr Corbett) and the Minister in charge of Civil Aviation (Mr Shand), would be the sensible way of dealing with the question. As far as the authority could go at this time, members showed understanding of the department’s attitude and willingness to consider arguments supporting it, without departing from the principle |of their original decision. A weakness of the Town and Country Planning Act is that full membership of regional planning authorities is confined to local authority representatives. An authority may co-opt representatives of government departments and other organisations. Although these associate members have no voting rights and therefore no responsibility, an authority cannot function properly without them. It may be a source of strength to the Christchurch authority that its associate members are sharing in the preliminary work. For instance, the four members of the sub-com-mittee investigating transport and traffic needs include two government officers. If the habit of co-operation grows the authority may be able to avoid the danger of departmental interference when it comes to make difficult decisions. Government activities are so inextricably bound up with the development of any district that they must influence the i shape of the final plan. It is better for departmental intentions to be | brought into harmony with local (wishes at the planning stage than |to have them superimposed afterwards.