MUST LEAVE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 173, 24 July 1941, Page 8

MUST LEAVE

ORDER TO CAMPERS

WESTERN SPRINGS CASE

Verbal notice that they must leave the Western Springs motor camp immediately was given this morning to six groups of campers who were first informed by the City Council on July 15 that they had overstayed The period during which they had been allowed to remain.

This information was given to the "Star" early this afternoon by two of the men concerned. "This morning the caretaker told us that as we had been given a week in which to leave and had not done so we must get out immediately," said one of the men. "Since the council first gave us notice to quit several campers have left, but there are still six groups at Western Springs, including an elderly widow who has two sons serving overseas with the forces. None of us desires to stay in the camp, which is a miserable place in this wintry weather, but what can we do? We can't get a house or a flat that is within our means. We are both working and each has a wife and child."

Waiting For State House

The two men said they had made application for a State house. One, who had been at the camp since F'ebruary had been waiting for five months for a State home, and the other had waited for 18 months. "It is impossible to get a fiat." said one. "People don't want to let fiats to people with families."

Both men were anxious to know what the legal position was, and when they left the "Star" office they remarked that they thought of interviewing Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M. "He is a kindly magistrate, and he may help us. so we will go and see him/ , one said.

Mr. Hunt sympathetically received the two men, but told them he was sorry he could not advise them on the legal position, as he might yet be called upon to decide their case if they were prosecuted. He told them they would have to leave if they received notice to quit, that being the legal position.