TOWN HALL ADVISER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29696, 14 December 1961, Page 16

TOWN HALL ADVISER

Perth Expert Invited Professsr Gordon Stephenson, professor of town planning at the University of Western Australia, has been invited by the City Council to come to Christchurch to advise on the site for a town hall and civic centre. Earlier this year the council invited Sir William Holford, an eminent British town planner, but he would not be able to come before June or July at the earliest. Last month he wrote to the council saying he appreciated the desire for some progress on the plans and thought the council could not do better than seek Professor Stephenson’s advice. Professor Stephenson was associated with Sir William Holford at the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and was later professor of civic design at the University of Liverpool. He had experience in the United States before the Second World War. While he was professor of town planning at Toronto University he went to Perth and Fremantle for one year, and about 18 months ago was invited back to Perth to take his present chair. He also acts as town planning consultant to the city councils of Perth and Fremantle. The town hall committee reminded the council that when it invited Sir William Holford the terms of the invitation were that he should be “entirely free from influence or suggestion as to any particular site or sites.”