Regional Planning Clarified

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 166, 19 July 1946, Page 5

Regional Planning Clarified

(P.A.) Wellington, July 18. The Minister of Works, Mr. R. Semple, to-day expressed a wish that in districts where works proposals had been submitted to local authorities, regional planning councils should review these as soon as possible. “Proposals covering other districts in New Zealand have been scrutinised and are being assembled by the Ministry of Works, but the Government wishes, before preparing construction programmes for the next financial year, to have the benefit of local authorities’ advice regarding works they consider should have first priority,” said Mr. Semple. This made it essential for regional councils to be well established on a proper working basis, as the responsibility for reconciling competitive local claims must be placed on them. Otherwise the whole benefit to local authorities of regional planning would be lost.

Mr. Semple said that he recognised that at present, the recommendations of regional councils would have to be made on a somewhat arbitrary basis, but when the principle of regional planning became properly established he hoped they would have information of the potential resources of their districts that would make the preparation of development plans much more simple. Proposals outlined already in various centres represented applications which had been made to the Ministry of Works, and which the Government thought must have consideration within the next ten years. In each year programmes of -work would be prepared, related, of course, to the finance available and the policy of full employment and full production to which the Government was pledged. From now on the views of local authorities as to which works should, he included and which deferred would be available to the Government. FORMING A PATTERN

The assembling of all proposals regionally in one picture, enabling developmental patterns to be formed by local authorities and by the Government jointly for years ahead, irrespective of when the actual works would be carried out, was essential if local authorities, particularly urban ones, were going ot plan with any safety at all. Regional councils would be of great assistance in dealing with regional problems of manpower and material shortage, which it was difficult to handle effectively and quickly froni, Wellington. Mr. Semple said that, he was sure the Government’s inclination towards decentralisation in this respect would be appreciated. He hoped that there would be no further misconception of the Government’s intentions regarding regional planning. He had never indicated that all the projects described in any of the Mans announced to date would be carried out within ten years, but that all of them would require consideration within that time, and from year to year as each year’s programme of works was drawn up. DECIDING PRIORITIES

All the Government was now seeking were the views of interested local authorities as to which should be done first. Mr. Semple said that no expenditure of fantastic sums was ever contemplated. At all times expenditure on the programme would be directly related to the national economy.

Relatively, the annual programme would not be any greater than the country undertook before the war, and all works would be subjected to the closest scrutiny. Essential undertakings, such as hydro-electric supply and housing, would be prosecuted to the maximum of the nations’ capacity, but less important works would have to take their turn with other demands on available manpower and material.