Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1947 DEVELOPING THE BAY OF PLENTY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 39, 11 June 1947, Page 4

Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1947 DEVELOPING THE BAY OF PLENTY

PROBABLY in no other region of New Zealand is there such scope for development in the next decade as in the Bay of Plenty. One of the last portions of the Dominion to receive the benefits of railways, good roads and closer settlement, this great area is destined to provide a livelihood for tens of thousands more people in a few years’ time. For this reason it is gratifying to have the assurance of the Minister of Works that the Bay of Plenty is well provided for in the latest ten-year plan for the expenditure of public funds. If the plans drawn up by the Minister’s engineers are successfully carried out by 1957 many of the difficulties under which the people of the Bay of Plenty are now working should be removed. The Minister and his engineers appear to be fully aware of the fact that the land bordering on the shores of the Bay and extending inland to the sources of its rivers has a diversity of resources and activities unparalled in any other similar length of New Zealand coastline. Its rich lands and forests are awaiting only the industry and ingenuity of man to support a much greater population. Its beaches, rivers and lakes make it a holiday paradise which in future years must certainly attract many more visitors. In listing the highway and railway improvements, the proposed airfields, river control measures, public buildings and borough improvements the engineers are wisely looking ahead to the not-too-distant future when there will be no idle land, when there will be new industries depending on the wealth of the forests, and when the towns will be growing into small cities. The Bay of Plenty region is, in fact if not'in name, a new provincial district which in time cannot fail to be as productive and as well peopled as the older provinces. The Government can be assured of the wholehearted co-operation of local authorities and the public in the tarrying out this ten-year plan for the Bay of Plenty.