RONGOTAI INQUIRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 13, 15 July 1937, Page 8

RONGOTAI INQUIRY

PRELIMINARY MEETING

COLLECTION OF DATA

The appointment last week of an expert committee to inquire into the best means for the development of Rongotai aerodrome to meet the needs of the future has been followed by prompt action, for yesterday afternoon the committee met under the, chairmanship of the Engineer-in-Chief, Public Works Department, Mr. J. Wood, to discuss the method of procedure.

Steps were taken to have all available data upon Rongotai's particular conditions and overseas data upon aerodrome standards collected and correlated, work which will occupy possibly a month. The next formal sitting of the committee will be held in three or four weeks' time.

The questions which the committee is asked by the Minister of Aviation (the Hon. F. Jones) to investigate cover a wide field to the end of determining whether Rongotai can be made suitable as a main internal airport, for night as well as day flying, its suitability when developed as the terminal for a service from overseas, using land planes, the building and lighting facilities required, measures of traffic control, the engineering methods by which development should be carried out, and the extent to which there should be a demarcation of State and local authority responsibility in the work.

The committee proposes to call expert evidence upon these points, but is not proposing to call for evidence from the public. The chairman, in reply to a question today, however, said that should any persons consider that they had information which would be of assistance to the committee they might put their statements forward in writing, and if it thought advisable the committee could then call such persons to give evidence in greater detail. The evidence, said Mr. Wood, would be taken in camera.