A WELLINGTON COMPLAINT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26045, 8 January 1946, Page 3

A WELLINGTON COMPLAINT

SHORTAGE OF OFFICE ACCOMMODATION It is not surprising (states the Evening Post) that complaints arise against the acquisition by Government departments of what was private office space in Wellington, for good offices in the city are almost as difficult to find as good housing dccammodation. Departments and their sections and subdivisions are sprinkled round the capital in just about a hundred different buildings.. Of these only about three dozen are apparently Govern-ment-owned. The rest might have anything from one to half a dozen bits and pieces of different departments occupying what was originally ordinary office space. With the seat of Government in Wellington, and the head offices of departments in addition to district offices, it is inevitable that the Accommodation Board of the Public Service must be hard put to it to fit everyone into some sort of office or building. The growth in the number and size of permanent departments in recent years, apart altogether from the demands of war-time expansion, has resulted in an unavoidable dispersion of many of them throughout the city area. Construction of new buildings by the Government for the Government has been hopelessly outstripped by the demand.