INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26233, 17 August 1946, Page 6

INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION

Dunedin Badly Handicapped

Many Building Permits Deferred

Advantages to North Island

Industrial expansion in Dunedin, involving an expenditure of approximately £1,000,000, fo being delayed because of the refusal of the authorities to grant immediate permits to build, while high priorities are being accorded new industrial undertakings in northern cities.

Permits have been granted for the erection of rubber tyre factories in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, and a building is being constructed in Auckland for a recently-formed company, an off-shoot of an Australian organisation. In the race for post-war industrial expansion, Dunedin is being severely handicapped. The total value of new factory buildings in Auckland and Wellington would be equal to more than the total value of Dunedin’s, industrial plans, and it would appear that the building controller is under a definite direction from a higher authority—a direction that is penalising local industrialists at the expense of any application for new industries.

Dunedin is concerned with the development of her own city, and it is the responsibility of the City Council, the Harbour Board, the Dunedin Development League, the Chamber of Commerce, and other organisations to take action to ensure that the present policy of a curtailment of Dunedin expansion is arrested immediately, and, after representations to the Minister of Works, Mr Semple, to declare a definite statement of policy as affecting the city.