OVERCROWDED PLAYGROUNDS

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 148, 23 June 1923, Page 6

OVERCROWDED PLAYGROUNDS

A CRISIS APPROACHING. THE POSITION AT REMUERA. PROBABLE LOSS OF GROUXD. The attention attracted to the city's playgrounds by the current spell of wet weather has reminded a number of sports i officials of the jeopardy in which that fine playing area known as the Remuera recreation ground stands. A number of yeajs ago, when this area of several acres was used as the playground of King's College it was looked on as bound to be one of the popular public playgrounds of the city, and the lessees spared no effort to improve its surfacing and drainage to this end, Mr. Fred. Earl stimulating and assisting interest in this respect. Help was given by the Hockey Association as subtenants, and eventually the ground had cricket pitches and outfields outrivalling those of the Domain and Victoria Park. Efforts by ilr. Earl to have the area taken over by the City Council from the owners, the Dilworth trustees, were unsuccessful, but the Hockey Association and the Remuera Bowling Club negotiated 40 years' leases of the area, and the former had an excellent pavilion erected, being assisted by arrangements made with the King's College management. During the war years the Hockey Association was unable to keep to its agreement of lease, and carried on with a yearly tenancy, while the removal of King's College early last year to Mangere further weakened the support by which it was hoped to get the ground eventually reserved as a playing area. It then became known that the Dilworth Trustees purposed cutting up the area into residential sites. Another effort was made by hockey and cricket supporters to have the ground taken over 'by the City Council, but without avail, and the position then arrived at was a six-monthly tenancy by the Hockey Association, which in the summer months negotiated a sub-lease with the Cricket Association. With the opening of the new tram route to Market Road, it is believed that the position, so far as sports bodies are concerned, is now more acute than ever, for it makes the eutting-up proposition a more attractive one than ! ever. From a general sports point of J view, the loss of the ground will add to the congestion of players on the already overcrowded playgrounds. At Remuera there are nine hoekev fields, and with the loss of these the"Hockey Association will become applicants for space on the Domain and Victoria Park, with rights equal to those of Rugby, League and Soccer players. "It is time," remarked a prominent sports j official to-day to a "Star" representative, "that all the sports bodies of the city got together for a review of the whole question of public playgrounas, with the object of having a definite statement of policy on the subject from the City Council." Each sport, he remarked, strove to have one small ground of its own for necessary revenue obtainable from special events, but not one of the sports which catered for the youth of the community could hope to finance the playing areas required to give space for all its youthful adherents in their usual weekly games. It was recognised world-over that to a degree the provision of playgrounds to' give young citizens opportunity for healthy exercise was a municipal responsibility, and that it was an obligation on organised sports bodies to see that the opportunity thus given was availed of and that the players were kept under proper control. This view was recognised in Auckland, even twenty years ago, when sportsmen and City Council worked in close cooperation on the Domain and Victoria Park. But since the sports bodies started to do all they could for themselves in acquiring and improving other playgrounds, the City Council had lost sight of its obligations. Every other phase of municipal activity had gone ahead in that time, but the playsrounds had gone back, and the probable loss of the Remuera ground would be a serious set-back to every kind of organised sport and to the youth of the city. He felt that it would bring matters to a crisis j