“Blueprint For Future”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30062, 21 February 1963, Page 8

“Blueprint For Future”

If the Christchurch City Council accepted the Regional Planning Authority’s master traffic plan, amended as necessary, it would have a blueprint upon which all future developments could be logically based, with tremendous and obvious advantages, said the City Engineer (Mr E. Somers) in a report submitted to the council last night.

“In its present form, the master plan should be regarded as flexible in matters of detail, and capable of alteration to suit conditions as they arise,” Mr Somers said in his conclusions reached on the authority’s plan. “However, in general outline, the plan does represent the present •intention of the authority, it having already been adopted by it in principle. Any comment offered by the council would bear this in mind.

“In the event of the council being unwilling to endorse all, or any portion of the plan and, therefore, its implications, it should be prepared to substantiate its views very fully when the plan is submitted for formal approval under the act, unless the authority alters its plan in accordance with the council’s comments,” Mr Somers said.

He -said that the four months allowed for such formal comment or objection (after steps had been taken by the authority to have the master plan adopted, under

the Town and Country Planning Act, as an operative regional scheme) would provide little time to substantiate any major objection or to offer some acceptable alternative.

“In this event, the council would be wise to proceed immediately with the preparation of any scheme which may have to be prepared to allow integration with the plan, and therefore an early decision on Its acceptability.” Basic Concept

The first and foremost decision the council would have to make was its acceptance, or denial, of the basic concept of the plan—that was, a city designed for a high degree of private car use with the necessary framework of urban motorways.

If this concept was not acceptable tb the council, then the whole plan must be rejected and steps devised and taken to restrict or prevent development of traffic growth on the lines of the last 50 years, or an entirely new plan prepared, Mr Somers said.

He suggested the following specific lines of thought along which . the council might wish to offer comments:

That the authority be requested to ' examine again every possible alternative to the present Fendalton-Avon-side motorway. That when detail planning of one-way street systems directly associated with the mote

lys is undertaken, it should be carried out in close and complete co-operation with council officers who should concurrently prepare comprehensive proposals for traffic distribution and parking wiithin the city centre. That a detailed economic appraisal of all portions of the plan should be a necessary part of the continuing planning end design- process to be carried out by the authority as the plan is developed in greater detail That the plan ahould be made to conform with the council’s proposals for the town hall with consequent re-routing of traffic.