The Square.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19057, 20 July 1927, Page 10

The Square.

The City Council took the unusual step on Monday night of authorising tenders for a Square improvement scheme for which it has neither the cost in hand or in sight nor the clear approval of the public. In the matter of finance it cannot, and (the Mayor said) will not, begin the work without a guarantee of one thousand pounds from the Tramway Board; and it cannot complete the job without a further contribution of more than three thousand pounds from the Memorial Column Committee. But finance is only one possible obstacle. The scheme submitted to the Council last year, and not since submitted in any satisfactory way to the public, was an attempt to meet the demands both of the utilitarians and of the Square beautifiers, and also, and particularly, the wishes of the relatives of our dead soldiers. If .this is the scheme for which the City Engineer has now been authorised to call there seems to be

about three chances to one that his and the tenderers' time will be wasted. If, on the other hand, the Council proposes to go ahead with or without the co-operation of the Column Committee, it is proposing something which all good citizens should oppose. For the Square will be no less invaded, vulgarised and endangered by the trams when they shunt round a colonnade than when, as now, they shunt round a shed, and it will be very much further removed from a return to its original purpose. Indeed, so far as this particular plan is concerned for which tenders are apparently being called, it makes no real difference whether the Column Committee eomes in or stands out. Every scheme is objectionable which leaves the tiams in the Square, and worse than objectionable when it permits them to pick up passengers there, and make the Square permanently the starting and stopping place of all their journeys.