CITY’S ATTITUDE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 144, 14 March 1931, Page 7

CITY’S ATTITUDE

Town-planning’ Question Mentioningthat every civilised country in the world was paying more and, more attention to town planning as a meang of achieving public economy, the Director of Town Planning, Mr. J. W. Mawson, criticised the attitude of the Wellington City Council in his speech at the first meeting of the Wellington branch of the Town Planning Institute. “I have yet to learn,” he said, “that town planning involves expenditure of any money other than for the preparation of the necessary surveys and plans. Town planning is the means—if . not the only means —of achieving economy in municipal administration, and it strikes me as rather inept that in Wellington City, of all places, which is faced with such.enonnous expenditure in rectifying the mistakes of the past, to decide that the time is not opportune for the expenditure of any moneys on the preparation of a town planning scheme.” Mr. Mawson suggested to the meeting that the Wellington branch should do work in promoting a town planning scheme for Wellington and a regional planning scheme for the wider area of which the city would form the focal point. Mr. H. F. Johnston, K.C., who presided, also criticised the council and said that it was astonishing to find that the great body of people in New Zealand thought town planning something of academic interest which could be put off until to-morrow. Later he said that the branch certainly did not want to throw a wrong light on the council’s attitude. The city valuer. Mr. Martin, said during the discussion that council members were sympathetic toward town planning, but there was, he thought, a confusion between town and regional planinterviewed yesterday, the Mayor, Mr. G. A. Troup, expressed surprise at the speeches made by Mr. Mawson and Mr. Johnston and regretted that an atmosphere had been created which might lead to bad feeling. The council was not antagonistic to town planning and had merely been discussing regional planning, in which it had wisely decided to proceed cautiously. The Wellington City Council, said Mr. Troup, had actually been the first municipality to engage a town planning officer.