The system of allocating space and planning the development of the Victoria campus is seriously in need of an overhaul, so much so that the two bodies whose job it is to advise the Vice Chancellor on these matters have both recently recommended that they be dissolved, and a new planning body be set up.

Both the Site and Building Development and Utilisation committee of the University Council, and the Accommodation Advisory committee of the Professorial Board feel that the existing system creates an unnecessary duplication of resources. As far as the members of these committees, and other people concerned with planning are concerned, the existing system is ambiguous and inefficient.

The chairman of the Site committee, A.F. Nightingale, suggested that it was an outmoded remnant of the day when one executive, the Vice Chancellor (or Vice Principal) could successfully oversee all aspects of the university. The Hunter situation is symptomatic of the haphazard and clumsy way in which this university is now planned, he said.

Accommodation Plan Only Now

It is only in the last week that a 'space schedule' has been prepared by the Accommodation Advisory committee showing clearly that the Music department will require accommodation separate from the proposed 'Hunter replacement'. The possibility of the Music department being domiciled in a propped up old law library, a part of Hunter that it is suggested will be retained, has effectively been ruled out by the University Grants Committee's refusal to fund music auditoriums etc.

A specific Music building is therefore required; under the current planning procedures, this could drag on for decades.

As examples of just how impossible the system is, Nightingale gave Salient two instances. The mooted extension to the Library required two years, from April 1979 to March 1981 merely to get approval for plans to be drawn up; a job which Nightingale says School of Architecture Dean Gerd Block estimated could, at a pinch, be executed in two days.

Secondly, the new Bernard Murphy building has been held up for 18 months by an argument with the Wellington City Council, which Nightingale suggests is completely unnecessary, about the height of the building.

No End in Sight

So, the Music department could wait in Hunter for 15 years for a new building, or they could be relocated in old houses and so on until new accommodation is prepared.

This is a risky business; 'temporary' accommodation has an alarming tendency to become permanent.

In any event, neither of the two committees is able to plan a move with any degree of certainty, because the executive (the Vice Chancellor) has in the past quietly handed out buildings (the computer centre at 24 Kelburn Parade, the Marae, and the Library training building) without consulting them. This is just one of a series of gripes that these committees have about the system, and Salient hopes to report on these problems and the plight of university planning in subsequent issues.

Stephen Danby