TOWN PLANNING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 13

TOWN PLANNING.

WORK TO CONTINUE. A DIRECTOR REQUIRED. CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. Town planning throughout New Zealand is to be continued as far as possible during the war, according to a statement by Mr. E. V. Blake, representative of the Institute of Surveyors on the Town Planning Board, at the annual meeting of the institute to-day. Mr. Blake said he had feared that the war would preclude an active interest by the Government in town-plenning work, but he had recently been assured that as far as was humanly possible there would be no slackening. The Department of Internal Affairs was still prepared to pursue an active policy, urging local bodies to undertake planning. A member eaid the difficulty at present was the lack of a director of town planning. In the absence of a director, certain legislative provisions could not be fulfilled. Mr. Blake replied that the Town Planning Board had on three occasions passed resolutions urging the appointment of a director, but so far it had been difficult to get the Department to act on its recommendations. Town planning was also discussed in the annual report of the institute. "Iβ it too much to hope that ultimately town planning in New Zealand will be controlled by the Department logically fitted and technically trained to undertake this work, the Lands and Survey Department?" asked the report. The president, Mr. C. K. Grierson (Auckland), said it had always seemed to him a strange anomaly that town planning should be administered by the Department of Internal Affairs. Any body other than the Government would naturally place in charge of such work those best qualified to handle it.