FUTURE POLICY OF TRAMWAYS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25206, 10 June 1947, Page 8

FUTURE POLICY OF TRAMWAYS

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT SHORTLY DIFFICULTIES FACED BY BOARD Within six or eight weeks, the Christchurch Tramway Board will make a public statement about its future policy. This was announced by the chairman (Mr H. A. C North), when the board met yesterday afternoon. “Our new general manager (Mr J. F. Fardell) took over his duties last October, and since then has done a great deal of work on the future policy,” Mr North said. “He has been interrupted by other matters, such as the claim for a Dominion award for tramwaymen, and there are the difficulties of changing prices and shortages of supplies. The statement has to go to the Local Bodies Loans Board, and then has to be approved by a vote of ratepayers; but as the public is anxious to know the policy, it will be released before it goes to the board. “We have had a lot of talks and plans, but in this board we have not only to discuss a plan, but also we have to put pounds, shillings and pence alongside it, and show the public just •uhat any particular plan is going to cost. We can have anything we like if we are prepared to pay for it. The power supply crisis makes matters even more difficult, but there are the other difficulties.”

Replying to a deputation from the Beckenham Residents’ Association, which requested that the board should institute a circuitous service for the Beckenham area, Mr North said that before the future policy was agreed upon the public would have to decide what it wanted. There must be either a service every quarter of a mile or so, with very infrequent timetables, or a first-class timetable with a greater distance between services. From a transport point of view, Christchurch was thinly populated, he added. Many closely-knit services with little walking distance and inadequate timetables would probably not be acceptable. He promised that the board would give consideration to the request by the deputation, but pointed out that the board was short of 61 men at present to run the existing services, and that if the new suggested award was adopted there would be an even (greater shortage.