CREATION OF NEW TOWNS

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28268, 4 May 1957, Page 12

CREATION OF NEW TOWNS

Solution To Urban Sprawl

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 3. The creation of self-contained new towns on new land, as had been done in Britain ir, recent years, might offer a solution to New Zealand's problem of ribbon development, said the president of the British Institute of Architects (Mr Kenneth Cross) in Auckland today. It would be necessary. however, to attract in- ; dustr. into the new areas, and this was not always easy.

J He said he had found an alarmi ing amount of urban sprawl in all itl : main cities -1 New Zealand, Auckland being a particularly > bad example. He realised this jihad been caused by land farther » out being cheaper. But New Zea- . land must avoid losing her capi acity to feed herself la fate which had overtaken Britain) through Seating up agricultural land for i housing. New Zealanders had also been : - wasteful in erecting commercial ■ ■ buildings of one or two storeys’ » in main thoroughfares. Mr Cross said he had been ? shocked by what he called the: r “street furniture’’ here —a net- , work of overhead wires and , cablet, posts, street signs, and - shelters unco-cfrdinated and with - no attempt at harmony. ■- Professor R. T. Kennedy, the new Professor of Town Planning -j at Auckland University College, -’said today that about 12 of these - • “new towns” had been completed • sox were under way in Britain, ■•housing about 500.000 people.: ■|They were financed by the Government through special comm is-; pions. People lived and worked; [in them, industries having moved! into them to make use of the | I 'labour offering.