STRONG DISAPPROVAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 110, 12 May 1939, Page 7

STRONG DISAPPROVAL

CABINET ACTION

REGARDED AS SLUR

VALLEY TOWN PLANNING

The Hutt River Board yesterday resolved to acknowledge receipt of a letter from the Minister of Internal Affairs, "and in reply would state that they consider the action of Cabinet is autocratic and not in the best interests of • the Valley. The board would assert strongly their opinion that the supplanting of the committee of experts, selected by the leading citizens of the local bodies concerned, in accordance with the resolution unanimously carried by the conference, a resolution supported by the Ministers and Departmental representatives who were present, by one man and he not independent in his views or actions, but ■ -responsible to his Departmental head, is an unwise and retrograde step and does not meet with the approval or confidence of this board."

The letter from the Internal Affairs Department notified the board that Cabinet could not agree to the personnel of a proposed town planning board for the Hutt Valley chosen by a committee set up for the purpose at a conference of local bodies held under the chairmanship of the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry).

The motion was moved by the chairman (Dr. B. J. Dudley). He said that the conference had been so much waste time, though it was called by Mr. Parry, who gave, with Mr. Nash full approval to its findings. That surely should have been sufficient guarantee that the work of the committee set up by the conference should have had the approval of Cabinet. One would have thought, said Dr. Dudley, that before the conference was called Cabinet would have considered the matter and it was hardly likely that Mr. Parry would have called the conference without the consent of Cabinet. He was sure Mr. Parry would feel the position most keenly. It certainly looked like a direct slap in the face for Mr. Parry and indeed for the representatives of all the local bodies who had wasted their time attending the conference.

Mr. J. W. Andrews said it could not be meant otherwise than as an insult to all those who had attended the conference, and it was a sad commentary on the splendid efforts made by Mr. Parry to co-operate with local •bodies. Mr. Parry had given a very fine service, indeed. It had been a pleasure to work with him and his Department, and he must have been keenly hurt by the action of Cabinet against the proposal, with which he had been in full agreement. The reso-1 lutions moved at the conference were, with two quite unimportant alterations, drafted by the Department of Internal Affairs. The findings of the committee set by "the conference were unanimous, though ' :.';Mr. Nash was absent during the last part of the meeting. The men chosen were well qualified, and the ' final resolution nominating them was moved by the chairman, the Hon. W. E. Parry. The confidence the people of the valley n^ight, have had iri. .an independent committee had been shaken by the appointment of a man who, no matter how capable he might be, was governed" by the head of his Department. All concerned had been grossly insulted. The Lower Hutt borough had one of the best town planners in the Dominion, who had heen working for three years in the preparation of a town plan, and now, according to a recentlyrexpressed view of Mr. Mawson, the appointed planner for the Hutt, Valley, all his work might have to go into the melting-pot. Tlie motion was carried unanimously. Dr. Dudley remarked that it was somewhat amusing that at the same meeting at which the announcement was made that the work of the committee was washed out the board had before it another letter asking the board's approval to the committee set up by the. conference;, The board decided that the committee had its unanimous approval.