Architects Also Concerned About Building Needs

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31349, 20 April 1967, Page 3

Architects Also Concerned About Building Needs

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, April 19.

Architects today joined builders in condemning the Building Industry Advisory Council, which the Minister of Works (Mr Allen) has said should be an instrument in advising the Government of the building industry’s needs and problems.

Auckland architects want to end their representation on the council because of its “ineffectiveness.”

In a joint statement, Mr B. Gillespie and Mr N. Coleman, of the public relations committee of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, Auckland branch, said: “The present crisis is immediate and the channels suggested by the Minister (the advisory council) are considered to be too protracted to be of any immediate value.

“In fact, the Auckland branch feels that the effectiveness of the building advisory council is so limited that a recommendation was made to the recent institute conference at Queenstown that its representation be withdrawn.

“This recommendation is now being considered by the institute executive in Wellington.”

“A crisis is rapidly approaching the building industry, say the architects, and needs immediate remedial action. Local Position “What the Government still fails to appreciate is that the acute local position is peculiar to Auckland and that other centres have not as yet been affected.”

The Minister had said there had been a continual increase in the volume of permits issued.

The Auckland City Council advised the branch today that the value and number of permits issued to March 31, 1967, was noticeably lower than the corresponding figure for the previous 12 months. Telegram Sent

The Acting-Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) has promised to discuss the building programming with the Minister of Works (Mr Allen), he told

the Carpenters’ and Joiners’ Union, Auckland branch, in a telegram today.

He was replying to a telegram from the branch asking for an assurance that the Government would release sufficient work through the programmer, or ease economic controls sufficiently, to ensure continued full employment of industry workers.