Reply To Comments On Local Bodies

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 15

Reply To Comments On Local Bodies

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Aug. 20. Size was not the only yardstick on which the existence and continuance of a local authority should be determined, the president of the Municipal Association (Mr E. M. H. Kemp), said in a statement yesterday.

He was commenting on a report from Palmerston North on Monday in which a city and regional planner, Mr O. McShane, said many New Zealand towns faced the prospect of slow death unless they learned to co-operate on a regional basis. “It would be wrong to suggest that merely because one local authority is not large it is not efficient. Efficiency is not measured by the size factor alone,” said Mr Kemp. Whatever the size of a unit of local government it must be efficient to justify its existence. It must also be prepared to recognise the necessity of close co-operation and co-ordination on matters which have regional significance.

“It may also be necessary or desirable at times to coordinate with a neighbouring local authority in matters where it is sensible for both authorities to share services and plant,” he said. The dominant feature for any local authority to achieve was the maintenance of a community of interest. In recent years there had been at least one example of a large local authority being formed in which the various localities, .both rural and urban, lacked a community of interest

Mr Kemp said where there was a lack of community of interest localities could not be expected to combine successfully. To attempt to have them combine would be impracticable.