TOWN PLANNING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 68

TOWN PLANNING.

WELLINGTON, August 16. The City Council, sitting last evening as the Finance Committee, adopted the recommendation of the special sub-com-mittee that Mr, H, Butcher, A.R.1.8.A., A.N.Z.1.A., should be appointed to the office of town planner for Wellington. Thirty-seven applications were received, stated the Mayor to-day, and of those seven were set aside for further consideration by the committee, the applicants being personally interviewed. Mr Butcher, said Mr' Troup, is 31 years of age, and lias had a varied and wide experience of work directly connected ■with and is closely associated with town planning. He studied town planning at the London University for three years, and was Lever prizeman in town planning in 1920 and prizeman in civic architecture in the following year. His university course also included civil engineering in the wider sense. Later, Mr Butcher was engaged in his Majesty’s Office of Works, London, being particularly concerned with housing schemes for various parts of England. He left that service to continue his architectural studies under Sir Herebrt Baker, A.R.A. Further experience was gained by Mr Butcher in America, where, in addition to visiting most of the large cities in order to study town planning and traffic problems, he was connected with the committee charged with the preparation of plans __ for the development of Greater New York. He had also visited several of the larger cities of Europe. At present Mr Butcher is an assistant in the Government architect’s office in Wellington. It is interesting to note that Mr Butcher studied in London as a fellow student of Mr Hammond.

Mr Troup expressed himself and the council as well pleased with the selection which they had been able to make. “We have, I think, been able to select the best man available in New Zealand, and, in addition to Mr Butcher’s services, we shall be able, by courtesy of the Government, to avail ourselves of the services of Mr Hammond, the Government’s director of town planning.”