REGIONAL PLAN PROGRAMME

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24905, 19 June 1946, Page 5

REGIONAL PLAN PROGRAMME

COUNCILS’ SHARE IN • WORK EXPLANATION GIVEN BY MR J. E. STRACHAN The relationship of regional councils to the Government was discussed yesterday by Mr J, E. Strachan, chairman of the North Canterbury Regional Council, in a statement to “The Press.” Mr Strachan was commenting on a leading article dealing with questions arising from the publication of the 10year plan for Canterbury, and he suggested that the establishment of regional councils was a step towards a more democratic order. Mr Strachan said that the Minister of Works (the Hon. R. Semple), in his address on a proposed 10-year works schedule for North Canterbury, made no mention of the regional planning council, and might, by that omission, have given the impression that his proposals had no reference to the work of the council. The Minister subsequently repaired that omission, in part at least, in a statement to “The Press.” A fuller and clearer statement had, however, been made by the Commissioner of Works in reply to a letter from the council dated March 12. The reply stated* “The memorandum of March 21 addressed by the Minister of Works to the chairmen of regional councils makes it clear that there will be the maximum amount of consultation between the district representatives of the Ministry and the regional councils in respect to all works projects. This consultation will extend into the field of the relative priorities of works projects listed by the Government, local authorities, and private enterprise. Due consideration will be given to all recommendations brought forward by your executive or technical committees on the various aspects of the works programmes.” Promise Carried Out

It would appear from these statements that no importance was to be attached to a lack of mention of the regional council in the Minister’s address. said Mr Strachan. As a matter of fact the promise of consultation with the district officers of the department had, in North Canterbury, been fully carried out. “At the same time, it is obvious that it will take time for all of us concerned to get under way with what, after all, is a novel experiment in democratic research, planning, and orderly development,” said Mr Strachan. “The experience of the council’s executive and technical committees so far suggests that the main difficulty is to persuade local bodies and other local associations to carry out their own local research and initiate plans for their own districts.

“This reluctance to assume responsibility is understandable. We have been living through a succession of national emergencies, war, economic instability, uhemploymeht, and again war. In all countries these ‘emergency conditions’ have compelled national governments, no matter how democratic in theory, to extend the operation of their controls into fields that were normally those of the local authority or of private enterprise. It is going to be difficult to reverse that process, and to convert the central government, and the local authority, to a more democratic procedure.” Mr Strachan said the movement towards central control and direction was not, however, completely reversible. The world was no longer as it was before 1914. Vast technological changes, amounting to a new industrial revolution, and new international alignments had changed the whole pattern of life. An element of the emerging new order appeared to be regional planning and regional development.

“In our own case at least we may assume that the setting up of regional councils is at once an acknowledgement of the desire of the central Government for a more democratic order, and an encouragement to the local communities to assume more responsibility for the direction of their own affairs,” Mr Strachan continued. “The experiment may not be 100 per cent, successful, but at least it will prepare the way for something better.” In the meantime the North Canterbury Regional Council, and especially its technical committees and its permanent officer, had done a great deal of work, including the projection, and in some cases the completion, of basic surveys, Mr Strachan concluded. The work of the committee had been quite voluntary, but undoubtedly it was very valuable. The council hoped that the works schedule outlined by the Minister, which would be immediately under review by appropriate technical committees, would stimulate local authorities and others to move ahead with thCir local plans.