REGIONAL PLAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1945, Page 6

REGIONAL PLAN

TARANAKI APPROVES

POST-WAR CO-OPERATION

O.C. NEW PLYMOUTH, This' Day. A meeting attended by approximately 100 representatives of local bodies, business, farming, and employee interests in Taranaki, yesterday unanimously decided to set up a Regional Planning Council for Tavinaki. Members of Parliament for various parts of the province attended. Mr. Murdoch, president of the Local Bodies' Association and chairman of the Hawera County Council, presided.

Mr. Stephens, on behalf of the Organisation for National Development, briefly outlined the proposals, emphasising the importance of co-operative effort in solving the problems which will emerge in the immediate and ultimate post-war periods. He stated that the desire of the Department was to encourage people of the district to take more than a passing interest in the future welfare of Taranaki. The Government was anxious to co-operate with all the interests in the district with a view to providing that progress which was necessary for the welfare of the people.

After some debate of a general character, Mr. F. Vickers, chairman of the Taranaki County Council and ex-pre-sident of the Taranaki Farmers' Union, moved: —"That this conference of members oj[ Parliament and delegates of Government Departments, local bodies, and other organisations in the Taranaki Regional Area endorses the principle of regional planning as the most practical means of securing the active co-operation of all sections of the community in the promotion of the economic development of the region and approves of the establishment of a Regional Planning Council for Taranaki."

Mr. E. P. Corbett, M.P. for Taranaki, in seconding the resolution, said he felt that this was a move in the right direction and that it had his wholehearted endorsement.

The resolution was unanimously carried.

A provisional committee under the chairmanship of Mr. A. S. Tonkin, of Hawera, was set up to draft the constitution for the body and to arrange ■for the setting up of an executive committee and of specialist sub-com-mittees-to study the various problems. It was also agreed by the provisional committee that district committees should be set up so that the people of the various districts would have an opportunity to study the problems of their own district.