CIVIC PLANS FOR CHRISTCHURCH

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25589, 2 September 1948, Page 2

CIVIC PLANS FOR CHRISTCHURCH

SUGGESTIONS BY MR W. S. MACGIBBON ADDRESS TO WOMEN CITIZENS’ ASSOCIATION A new railway station and a better approach to it by the widening of Madras street to give a boulevard vista to Latimer square and beyond; the abolition of the Colombo street railway crossing; artistic bridges over the Avon, and ultimately a boulevard from the centre of the city right through to the estuary; a new north approach to the city which could be made possible if the City Council purchased the old buildings in Victoria street from Bealey avenue down, widened the street and built a model retail area for the fast growing city—these were some of the suggestions made by Mr W. S. Mac Gibbon at a meeting of the Women Citizens’ Association yesterday afternoon as a civic plan, so that generations 100 years hence would be as proud as the present generation was of the work accomplished by their forbears.

Other suggestions for civic projects made by Mr Mac Gibbon were an international airport at Harewood; replacement of trams by rubber-tyred vehicles —either Diesel or petrol-driven buses which would make for faster mobility and give greater service; a fine public library worthy of the city with a new building for a reference department; extension of suburban libraries with more facilities for them, including an early choice of the latest fiction; the taking of power lines and telephone lines underground as was done in some of the larger cities overseas; a new museum. It was not generally known, he said, that all the early records of the Canterbury settlement were stored in one of the attics at the museum. Citizens should also use their influence to see that the Provincial ’ Council Chambers—the finest Gothic building in the southern hemisphere—was secured for all time to the city so that the collections and records of pioneers of the province could be gathered together in one building for future generations to see. Community centres, children’s playgrounds well equipped and in safe places; and a survey of pensioners in the city so that when building costs came down cottages for them could be built, were also suggested. The possibilities of a vehicular tunnel road from Christchurch to Lyttelton, with the enlargement of the harbour, fastmoving launches—similar to those in Auckland and Sydney—giving a quick service to beautiful residential areas on the other side of the harbour, arid the development of a large industrial centre in the Heathcote Valley, were also visualised by Mr Mac Gibbon. Mrs G. H. Watts and Mrs W. Mackay thanked the speaker.