TAUPO COUNTY DEVELOPMENTS

Taupo Times, Volume II, Issue 92, 23 October 1953, Page 4

TAUPO COUNTY DEVELOPMENTS

THE recent announcement by the Minister of Lands that the Government intended to introduce legislation authorising the appointment of a commission to administer the County of Taupo, is likely to arouse considerable interest. The Counties Act has never been in force in the Taupo County, owing to the smallness of the population in the area. Apart from perhaps two Domain Boards, the Taupo Road Board was the first local governing authority in the area. Later it became the Town Board, and this has now become the Taupo Borough Council, probably the only Borough Council in New Zealand whose territory has never been included in the administrative area of a County Council. To date the x>nly rates levied in the Taupo County are those of the Waikato Hospital Board. Por some time past the officers of various Government Departments, whose administrative duties have made them thoroughly acquainted with the problems arising from the absence of any local authority in the area, at a time when rapid development has been taking place, have seen the growing need for the setting up of such an authority. One of these problems is the growth of a number of small but rapidly extending settlements, such as those on the Taupo-Tu-

rangi Highway, beginning close to the boundary of the Taupo Borough and extending to the growing Turangi townshlp itself. Already residents in some of these settlement areas have begun to realise the difficulties of road maintenance in the absence of any local authority. Problems of public health, the control of sub-stand-ard housing construction, and so on, also arise, and will be accentuated as development continues. That there exists a need for some measure of local governing administration will be generally recognised. The area of the Coumty, however, Is large, and the population much scattered and there is no doubt that administration will present difficulties not met with in most Counties. The Minister's reference to setting up a Commission, a nominated body being doubtless intended by this term, obviously stems frpm the recognition of these difficulties and a belief that in the initial stages of County administration such a body might be more useful than an elected Council. Under the unusual circumstances existing in the area.it would seem that such a belief is justified and that Commission control for the first few years is likely to be a sound and practical prelude to the later setting up of normal County Council control. i