AMALGAMATION DATE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27112, 7 August 1953, Page 8

AMALGAMATION DATE

Waimairi Agrees To

October 1 NO MOVE BY HEATHCOTE Agreement on October 1 next as the date for the amalgamation of big areas of the Waimairi County with the city of Christchurch was reached yesterday afternoon between representatives of the City Council and the county council.

A telegram informing the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr W. A. Bodkin) of the removal of all difficulties in the way of the amalgamation on October 1 was sent by the City Council. The understanding at the final conference was that the Waimairi County Council would send the Minister a letter confirming the date and asking him to approve and gazette it. The early amalgamation with the city of the Avonside and Bromley ridings and other areas of the Heathcote County is not in sight. The Heathcote County Council decided on Friday that April 1, 1954, was the most practicable date. Unless the attitudes of the City Council and the Heathcote County Council undergo a quick change, the question of the date will be decided by the Minister of Internal Affairs. More than 10,000 persons live in the areas of the Waimairi County to be amalgamated, and all over the age of 21 years will be entitled to enrol on the district electors’ roll and vote at the Christchurch city municipal elections on October 31.

If the date of the Heathcote County area amalgamations is deferred until April 1, the adults among the 3000 residents will have a vote for county riding members and on joining the city will have no representation. No overtures will be made by the City Council to the Heathcote County Council in an effort to make October 1 the amalgamation date, the Mayor (Mr R. M. Macfarlane, M.P.) said yesterday. Invitation Not Accepted “An invitation was given to Heathcote to join in discussions with Waimairi on the point of the practicability of amalgamation on October 1,” said Mr Macfarlane. “Heathcote declined to have further discussions, and the City Council will not ask for their reopening. Negotiations at this late stage would only hold up the whole question of amalgamation of the waimairi and Heathcote areas. Satisfactory agreement on finances has been made with Waimairi, and the final agreement on the date is proof of the soundness of the City Council’s contention from the date of the final scheme of the Local Government Commission that October 1 was a practicable date for amalgamation.” The decision of the Heathcote County adhering to April 1 as the most suitable date was formally received by letter yesterday by the City Council. The county council is suggesting to the' Minister that the riding representatives should become members of the City Council when the merger takes place. That will necessitate a change in the law, as the present legislation provides for direct representation by councillors of the outgoing council only when a whole local body area is amalgamated with another. T Sumner and New Brighton both appointed three councillors to the City Council when the mergers of the boroughs with the city took place between elections. The council had its biggest membership in 1921, when Spreydon and Woolston boroughs, which joined on the same date, each nominated three councillors to sit on the council until the following election.

The details of the final agreement between the City Council and the Wai* mairi County Council will probably not be made public until the finance committee reports to the City Council. The sum of £11.500 as being the sum to be paid by the county to the city as an adjustment was apparently retained, but another property was included in the assets, the properties and a Sanivan refuse collector being accepted by the City Council at the county’s valuation. Crs. W. W. Laing and Turner Smith represented the county at the final negotiations. The Mayor, the Town Clerk (Mr H. S, Feast), and Crs. T. H. McCombs and J. E. Tait were the city’s representatives.