TAKAPUNA EXTRAVAGANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 171, 22 July 1930, Page 6

TAKAPUNA EXTRAVAGANCE.

No doubt local ratepayers will almost unanimously agree with your correspondent "Boodles Blunder's" remarks concerning the recent decision of the Takapuna Borough Council to construct an unnecessary bathing pool in the Wairau estuary, thereby flagrantly ignoring and defying those-unfortunate people who have been foolish enough to purchase property, in Takapuna, and who find it extremely difficult to pay high rates. The present time calls for economy—according to statistical returns of street maintenance the net expenditure? from April 1, 1930, to June 30, 1930, amounted to £2G60, the allocation for the year being only £5000. If construction of . the bathing pool proceeds the council will eventually have to contribute at least £1000, and this amount would have to be obtained by overdraft. Considering that Takapuna's lovely beaches are the safest for bathers in the Southern Hemisphere, that most of the side roads are in a shocking condition, and that the unfinished portions of the arterial thoroughfares cost several hundreds of pounds for upkeep, there is not the slightest justification for construction of a bathing pool in the vicinity of the Pirate Shippe at Milford A few years ago a Kdyal Commission, acting upon the advice of leading navigators, refused to even sanction the construction of a bridge across the lower portion of the Wairau estuary, maintaining that as the estuary was the only safe available boat haven for several miles along the coast line it should not be rendered inefficient by any obstruction. It was also pointed out by experts that by dredging the estuary could be made suitable for the accommodation of fairly large craft. Now the Takapuna Council is endeavouring without any mandate from the ratepayers to enclose four and a half acres of the most navigable portion of the estuaiy and execute something which is contrary to the finding of the commission. JOHN GUINIVEN.,