QUARRYING ON MOUNT ALBERT

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 206, 29 August 1916, Page 8

QUARRYING ON MOUNT ALBERT

» PETITION THAT FAILED. PROTEST TO BE COXTDTUED. The treatment of the recent petition to Parliament about the Mount Albert railway"quarry was criticised severely! by the May or -of -Mount-Albert (Mr. Murdoch McLean) at a meeting of the Borough Council last night. The petition, said Mt. McLean, appeared to have got very little consideration. It was referred to the Railways Committee, which was entirely under the guidance of the Minister, and jn this case the committee not unnaturally reported that as the matter was one of policy it had no recommendation to make. The destruction of Mount Albert! concerned the whole of Auckland, and] the agitation against it ought not to be allowed to rest. The only excuse that the Railway Department could bring] forward was the cheapness and convenience of the quarry, but the manner in which the quarry was worked was entirely inexcusable. The pit slopes in their present condition were so steep as to be a serious danger to the public, and the only way to make them safe apparently was to build an ugly iron fence around the quarry. He was assured that unless steps were taken to stop the removal of scoria, the Department would soon be encroaching on the public reserve on the top of the hill, and the whole of the latter would eventually lie destroyed. The quarry railway was retarding tramway extension, and so hindering the settlement of the district. Mr. McLean further expressed the opinion that the petition failed mainly because Mr. C. J. Parr, member for the district, was absent when it came before Parliament, and no one appeared before the committee to advocate the claims of the petitioners.

The Mayor also contended that the Department was not keeping within the provisions of the Act passed some years ago, which prohibited owners of privata pits from cutting at a steeper grade tnan one in one, as the Government pit at Mount Albert was almost vertical and he considered it had become a positive danger to people using the-recrea-tion reserve.

The council resolved, on the motion of Mr. T. B. Clay, to make a further protest by letter to the Minister for Railways against the continued workin<* of the quarry at Mount Albert.