AMPLE TIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 205, 29 August 1940, Page 8

AMPLE TIME.

HUT'S REPLACEMENT.

SERIOUS LOSS OF IRON.

WELLINGTON, this day. "The contractors will soon rattle another one up, ,, said the Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, Mr. J. Wood, when asked to comment this morning on the destruction of the Waiouru messroom. Mr. Wood said that the building was practically completed by the contractors, the Fletcher Construction Company, Ltd., and the cost was approximately £7000. The building was a large wooden one, built to accommodate a battalion of 700 or 800 men at meal*. The kitchen was in the centra, but fortunately the kitchen equipment had not been installed. Apart from that, the building was practically ready for use. When workmen left the building on Monday night everything was in order. The fire evidently broke out late at night.

Mr. Wood said that the three contracting firms at the camp were employing GOO men, and there were 400 Public Works men carrying out sewerage, water supply and drainage installations.

The building destroyed had been erected in about three weeks, and, as the contractors had to have everything ready by the end of September for the beginning of training of territorials in October, there was ample time to replace the hut which had been destroyed. The building was insured by the contractors. The most serious loss from a replacement point of view was the galvanised roofing iron, the value of which was somewhere in the vicinity of £1000 However, iron would be procured for the new building, and he saw no difficulty about the supply of timber for the job — (Parliamentary Reporter.)