HAGLEY PARK PATHS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19691, 7 August 1929, Page 7

HAGLEY PARK PATHS.

MR YOUNG REPLIES TO CRITICISM. At a meeting of tlie Riccarton Borough Council on Monday evening last, severe comment was made by Cr. H. W. Wise on the state of a path in South Hagley Park. "If it had been a case of getting a tree from the other end of the world, we would have had it in our domain," he said, "but because it is just a matter of a footpath for the use of Eiccarton people and hundreds of school children, it does not matter. The state of this path in the last six weeks has prevented anyone using it. It is a scandalous shame for the man in charge of the City's parks to have done what the Curator has done to that path in the winter months. The Council asked long ago that the path be improved, not thrown back into a disgraceful 'state." When asked yesterday for his side of the matter, Mr James Young, the Curator of the parks and gardens, replied that Mr Wise had been discussing a job that was but half finished. "It was at their demand," he said, "that the path was ordered to be put in a good condition as soon as possible. The work was put in hand at once, but there's a Power much stronger than the Curator's power who sent weather quite unsuitable for the path. It was turned into a quagmire. But if Councillor Wise had been a wise man, when he found that weather had stopped the operations, he should have instructed the children to take a different path to school, which only increases the journey by a matter of a few minutes. If he has patience for a few days, the path will be one of the best in the whole Domain."