Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1943. TAKING TIME FOR THOUGHT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 February 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1943. TAKING TIME FOR THOUGHT.

JT is certainly wise and in every way desirable that the Masterton Borough Council, as the Government Town-Planning Adviser (Mr J. W. Mawson) suggested at its special meetingheld on Tuesday evening, should take time to consider carefully the proposals that have been advanced for the improvement particularly of the central business area and main traffic ways of the town. Discussion at the special meeting served a useful purpose in throwing light on the problems to be dealt with, but it was at the same time made manifest that wide differences of opinion exist in regard to the merits of particular proposals. Since the essential object aimed at is to provide adequate, efficient and economical facilities for trade, traffic and the service of the community generally, in what it is believed will be a period of rapid and considerable expansion, there should be no great difficulty in bringing all such differences to a satisfactory settlement provided the questions involved are a]n proached and dealt with in a methodical -way. This appears to imply first and foremost the adoption of a development plan of wide scope, looking perhaps quite a long way ahead. The time at which particular works can be put in hand must be determined, not only by acceptable standards of priority from the point of view of importance and urgency, but by immediate financial and other consideration. Obviously, however, all ■works carried out should be in harmony with those parts of a continuing plan of development ■which are held in abeyance for the time being. Planning ahead in this way is the only hopeful method of determining questions of priority and also of ensuring that maximum benefits shall be derived as the work of development proceeds. A development plan wisely conceived naturally would make the most of what is advantageous now, or might be made so, in the existing lay-out of the town. It is of great interest from this standpoint that Mr Mawson said that the existence (in Masterton) of three parallel streets of equal traffic value, within one block of one another, was almost unique in New Zealand. He thought the council, if it exercised powers it now possessed, had the means of increasing three-fold the capacity of .fast traffic through the borough, and that would be possible without widening any one of the three streets. It is clear that these facts and possibilities should be taken fully into account in considering, for example, the proposal of the Borough Engineer (Mr Mabson) that Queen Street should be widened by twenty feet. The essential point to be made, however, is that all individual improvement projects, including the town square proposed by the Mayor (Mr Jordan), ought to be considered and classified with reference to a development plan of the widest scope, looking ahead over a more or less extended period of years. The actual rate of progress in improving and developing the town will be determined by economic factors as time goes on, but whatever this rate may be, efficiency and economy, in the fullest sense of that term, will be achieved only by adhering from the outset to a harmonious and well-considered plan. As was observed justly at the meeting of the Borough Council on Tuesday evening other questions than those of streetwidening and extension—important as these are—call for consideration- where the continuing development of the- town is concerned. An improved water supply, new swimming baths and the taking over of Memorial Park, mentioned by Councillor Wilson, all have their claims to attention, and the- list no 1 doubt might be extended. Additional reasons thus appear for planning from the outset on the broadest scale, so that standards df relative importance and urgency may be established and every opportunity given for an exercise of foresight in selecting the works on which resources available at a given time may most advantageously be concentrated.