POST-WAR PLANNING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 134, 4 December 1944, Page 4

POST-WAR PLANNING

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Local authorities and trade and bus** ness, farming, industrial, and other organisations have been invited by' the director of the Organisation for National Development (Mr. J. S. Hunter) to appoint representatives to attend, early next year, conferences in' the 24 regions into which the Do- | minion has been divided, with a view, !to forming regional planning councils whose function will be to consider i problems of post-war reconstruction! and- development. In his circular, Mr. Hunter suggests that the regional councils will be able to deal with problems coming midway between "those which can be regarded as national and those which, concern individual local bodies' districts. He sets out the functions of a council provisionally as follows:—(1)' To take stock of the natural resources of the region. (2) To formulate ahd: examine projects suitable for the'rehabilitation of service personnel and war workers, and for othejr economic works for their transition period till long-range plans for. reconstruction and development can be put into operation. (3) To prepare a longrange co-ordinated scheme of physical development for the region, with particular reference to industry, transport, housing, and recreation. The regional councils are not to usurp or encroach on the prerogatives - or responsibilities of individual local authorities, Mr. Hunter states. They will be organised, and will function on a purely voluntary basis, and their recommendations will be carried out by other organisations. Surveys, preparation of maps, and plans and clerical work will be done in the • main by existing Government agencies, but local authorities will be asked to' co-operate by supplying information at their disposal. It is hoped that from a correlation .of regional schemes a national scheme will emerge.