A FAVOURABLE COMPARISON

Hokitika Guardian, 16 December 1931, Page 6

A FAVOURABLE COMPARISON

TOWN PLANNING. NEW ZEALAND AND OLDER COUNTRIES. WELLINGTON, December 14. Having been away from New Zealand for three months gathering first hand information on town planning subjects, Air J. W. Alawson, Director of Town Planning, returned by the Monowai. The primary object of his tour was to visit Santa Barbara ann San Francisco to study the rebuilding schemes there and gain information which might be of use in rebuilding Napier and Hastings. “J am afraid I did not learn anything of great value there,” Mr Mawson said in an interview, “but what I did see confirms my belief that we are going on the right principles here.” After visiting South California, Air Mawson went on to Gjreat Britain and game home via Canada. He had been intensely interested in the Town and Country Planning Bill that had been brought down by the Labour Government at Home, and which, but for the proroguing of Parliament, would have become law. Air Alawson said this measure was a far-reaching one, and outside bodies interested in it had been unanimous in approving the form in which it was presented to Parliament. Tn New Zealand many of the proposed regulations had been anticipated, but on the queston of tlie control of land under private ownership the Bill Went further than we in New Zealand had even discussed. V A Vancouver Scheme.

Tn Canada Air Alawson visited Ottawa and Vancouver, spending most of his time in Vancouver. There a town planning scheme had been completed which was of particular interest- to New Zealand because there was a better analogy among Auckland, Wellington and Vancouver than among t any other cities in the Empire. The scheme promised to he a great success, All Alawson said, but be thought New Zealand had gone one better stPl. All- Mawson also paid a brief visit to New York, where he was interested in what probably was the biggest town planning scheme yet evolved, the work of twelve or fifteen of America’s leading town planners. “It is such a tiemendous scheme that it is almost impossible to express an opinion on it, Air Alawson said. Marvellous Trip.

During the whole of his three months’ trip, Air Alawson experienced only four wet days. It was a marvellous trip,” he said, “‘and what was particularly interesting to me was the great interest that is being shown in New Zealand, particularly in the town planning activities here following the earthquake.