NEW INDUSTRIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 100, 30 April 1941, Page 5

NEW INDUSTRIES

CITY LACKS SPACE

PLANS MUST BE DRAWN

A new plank has been built into the Citizens' candidates' municipal election platform—the necessity to encourage the establishment of industries in and about Wellington city. They contend that Wellington is falling behind Auckland in this respect and that industries which should be set up in Wellington city are going wholesale to the Hutt Valley.

The City Council, said Mr. W. H. Stevens, should encourage manufacturing in the city by making available suitable idle land and buildings, and should offer other advantages to those who were prepared to invest capital and employ more people. New indus-" tries would immediately assist in meeting the shortage of consumable goods, and would help greatly in finding employment for men returning from service overseas.

Mr. C. M. Bowden has also advocated at a number of meetings that it is an essential part of good civic government to offer the facilities and services that will encourage the establishment of new industries. WHERE ARE THEY TO GO? Upon the question of where these new industries are to go there is not unanimity. Mr. L. McKenzie has stressed the necessity of more industry as a means of providing work for men coming back from service, and has stated his view that the head of Evans Bay, con-1 nected with the city thoroughfares byi a new i-oadway through a cutting be-1 tween the Governor-General's resi- j dence and the hospital, must be the site | for a light industrial area.

Mr. R. L. Macalister sees Johnsonville, Tawa Flat, and Porirua Harbour, gradually reclaimed, as the future industrial areas for Wellington city, planned in advance for light and heavy industry. Zoning of the present and the future city is also, he considers, essential so that each suburb and section of each suburb may develop in orderly and effective fashion.

The necessity, for a city plan was stated first in the campaign by Mr. R. H. Nimmo who said that he had been amazed that there was no longrange plan for Wellington, apart from that for future water supplies. What had been done by William Ferguson in planning the port waterfront was full proof of the value of broad planning. A plan for the beautification of • the Town Belt,was also needed.

Light industries might be established in Wellington, said Mr. Nimmo, but heavy industries must 'go to the Hutt Valley, where alone the essential water transport facilities closely adjacent could be given. What matter if heavy industry did go to the Hutt Valley, for Wellington city would benefit equally? Industrial development could come in casual fashion, or more rapidly and efficiently when all concerned —councils, Harbour Board, and business men—stopped thinking in watertight compartments and thought more of the city and the district as a whole.