NEW OPAWA POST OFFICE
OFFICIAL OPENING BY MR H. R. LAKE, M.P. OUTLINE OF TELEPHONE EXTENSIONS The programme of telephone extensions now being undertaken in Christchurch was the biggest ever attempted in the South Island, and would cost £1,750,000, said Mi- H. R. Lake, member of Parliament for Lyttelton, when he officially opened the new Opawa-Post Office yesterday. Mr Lake said the programme involved the construction of seven new automatic exchanges at Fendalton, Papanui, Riccarton. Shirley, Sumner, Beckenham and Islington; the installation of more equipment at St. Albans, New Brighton, Mount Pleasant and Lyttelton: and an extension to the central exchange. “Apart from this exchange construction, there is, of course, a tremendous amount of cabling and connecting to be done,” he said. “I have mentioned this because I think the size of the job the Post Office is doing to meet our wants needs to be understood, also because it throws some light on to the wide range of the Post Office’s building needs,” Mr Lake continued. “This building need has arisen because of many factors, among them the very great developments of recent years, the big Increases in population, and hence the bigger demands on the Post Office.”
It was not surprising that, when business had increased so rapidly, the building needs of the Post. Office should be - considerable. Mr Lake added. The Post Office did not want more than ite share of resources available; but it needed buildings to meet the very real day-to-day communications needs of the community. The Deputy-Mayor (Cr. J. E. Jones) outlined the advantages of the new Post Office to the district. He said that it was first sought when Sir Joseph Ward was Postmaster-General. “A lot of the credit for its construction is due to Mr T. H. McCombs, the former member for the district, who, aided by a sympathetic Government, did a great deal of work for Opawa, Cr. Jones added. The new office is a single-storey brick veneer building near the Opawa road bus terminus. Miss N. Fairbairn, who was formerly postmistress at the office in a general store in the area, will be in charge of the office.
NEW OPAWA POST OFFICE
Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26560, 24 October 1951, Page 8
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