The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1947. Sockburn-Styx Railway

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25089, 22 January 1947, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1947. Sockburn-Styx Railway

The objection of landowners to the proposed route of the SockburnStyx by-pass railway is unfortunate because it could delay a work of great importance to Christchurch. Both the City Council and the Christchurch Expansion and De- ■ velopment Committee have pleaded with the Government to begin the ; line at the earliest possible moment. In their opinion the line i .is vital to the industrial develop- j ment of the city, now desperately | ; short of factory sites served by rail, i The route has been approved by the I Government departments concerned and by the regional and metropolitan planning authorities. Protests and controversies at this stage can achieve little and at the worst they may provide the Government with the excuse to postpone the work or to move it some steps down the ladder of priorities. The Government should not, of course, allow any important developmental work to be delayed by small sectional disagreements, but the temptation would be there. In all directions it faces demands for many more large-scale works than it has the materials, the plant, and the engineering staff to cope with; and the demands for most of those works are unanimously backed by the residents in the districts concerned.

It is easy to sympathise with the landowners who will be affected. It is not so easy to agree with their dire prophecies about the effect on agricultural and dairy production. Though the proposed route unfortunately does traverse some highly productive land, the strip taken out of production should be narrow—probably little more than half a chain. Even if the Government reserved a much wider strip it would certainly be leased at once for farming purposes. The good land should not be affected, at least for many years, by industrial development, which is expected to be confined in the meantime to the three or four miles from Sockburn to near Burnside road. It need not be supposed that the Government departments and the j local authorities have been blind to the considerations raised by the residents. Both the North Canterbury Regional Planning Council and the Christchurch City Coilncil have made public their anxiety that highly productive land, much rarer in New Zealand than most persons believe, should he protected as long as possible frotn urban encroachment; but towns and cities are bound to grow. Landowners who suggested at the protest meeting that the proposed railway line would, within 10 years, be too close to the city set themselves in opposition to the town planning authorities who, looking 25 years ahead, are making their dispositions for a city expected to grow by theft to a population of 250,000. The by-pass railway is seen in these plans as an urban and industrial line. Laid too far from the centre of the city and from the port, it would lose much of its usefulness, and it is already on the extreme boundary of the area planned for industrial and residential development. Nearly every public work injures somebody. The law provides that the community which benefits as a whole should compensate those who suffer. Full compensation would be rightly asked and should be given. The Harewood residents have put their case to the public -and they will put it to the Government, Which may be expected to consider it carefully. If the route cannot be adjusted to cause less damage, they should be shown why it cannot be. Fuller and earlier information about the Government’s plans, and the reasons behind them, might have obviated a regrettable division of opinion within a community which should be united on this question.