TWELVE ZONES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 30, 6 February 1939, Page 7

TWELVE ZONES

BRITISH DEFENCE A NEW DEVELOPMENT DETAILS OF CONTROL MEETING POSSIBILITY OF ISOLATION [ British Official Wireless. ] RUGBY, Feb. 3. A further development of the plans for civil defence measures was revealed in the announcement by the Minister of Civil Defence, Sir John Anderson, that Britain is to be divided immediately into twelve zones for civilian defence. Each region in war will be in the charge of a regional commissioner appointed in peacetime and assisted by a deputy commissioner and a war staff, also designated in peacetime. Besides the air raid precautions regional officers, the staff will include representatives of all the Government departments concerned in civil defence, thus linking the regional organisation with the Government's existing machinery. The regional commissioner will in peacetime be supplied with full details of the war plains of all the Government departments concerned in civil defence and will hold frequent meetings with officials who would act with him in time of war. He will not be concerned with the administration of the A.R.P. scheme in peactime. Self-contained Units The degree of control exercised bj the regional commissioner in wartime on his own responsibility will varj according to the extent to which communications may have been affected but each region will in case of neec work as a self-contained unit. Greatei London will form one of ten region.into which England will be divided Wales will De the eleventh, and Scot land will be subdivided into fiv< areas and will constitute the twelftl region. The scheme is directed primarily towards dealing with the situatioi which might arise if any area in wa were so to suffer from bombardmen as to be temporarily cut off from th resst of the community and forced t organise its life as a separate uni until communications were restored There would be in each of the twelv regions an established governmen equipped with an adequate adminis tartive staff and essential authority t< decree and carry out measures fo civil defence.