PORT AND CITY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29051, 13 November 1959, Page 15

PORT AND CITY

Road Access Objective

He .would not rest until there was road access to the inner basin and the eastern harbour at Lyttelton so that the port development works tied in with the tunnel road, said Mr W. S. Mac Gibbon, Lyttelton Harbour Tpard and City Council candidate, at a Citizens’ Association meeting in Sumner last evening. “The new board must strive to release the wharves of Lyttelton from the stranglehold of the Railways Department,”’ Mr Mac Gibbon said. The Railways were losing money on the port, but still retained their control.

Dr. I. C. Macintyre found that there was little difference in the Citizens’ and the .Labour Party’s policies for the North Canterbury Hospital Board. “So the choice is over to you to decide who you want,” he said. There was much still to be done, including a reduction of the time patients spent on a waiting list for hospital treatment, Dr. Macintyre said. Another pressing need was for the full utilisation of the Princess Margaret Hospital, which at present was uneconomic as all the ancillary services were provided but not all the beds could be provided to go with them. River Problems

His-first three years on the North Canterbury Catchment Board l\ad been spent in “learning the ropes,” Mr J. G. McClelland said. Apart from the. prolem of the major rivers, there were many smaller problems involving a knowledge of areas, history of the problems, and acquaintance with the personalities involved, he said. When the major Waimakariri scheme was about to be embarked on by the board he suggested that the time was not opportune to change the members. Three of the four Citizens' candidates were sitting members and the fourth was a former member who had not lost touch with the board. Of Labour’s policy to see that more use was made of the Waimakariri river’s shingle resources, Mr McClelland said: “We all want to get rid of the shingle. Five contracting firms are removing shingle and we are negotiating with a sixth. Everything possible is being done, and nothing more could be, Labour or not.” The council was promised no peace until the city had a town hall if Mr H. G. Hay was successful in his bid for a council seat. “The time has been reached for action, and one of the first jobs of the new council should be to have plans of the town hall prepared," he said.