Delay In Building Hotel Attacked

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30073, 6 March 1963, Page 14

Delay In Building Hotel Attacked

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, March 5. Bitter complaints about the deferment of the building of a hotel at Wanaka until the completion of a similar hotel at Waitangi are contained in statements issued today by the Otago Development Council and the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce.

In addition, a telegram sent to the Minister for Tourist and .Holiday Resorts complains of the “gross breach of faith in view of the past assurances to the Development Council relating to the postponement of hotel building at Queenstown until the Wanaka hotel had been built.’’

The telegram, sighed by the Mayor (Mr T. K.. S. Sidey) in his capacity as president of the Development Council, said: “Otago interests have suffered immeasurably in the past through the argument that industry must be sited as near as possible to the point of consumption and, in the case of the steel industry, that it be sited in close proximity to the natural resources on which it is based. “Wanaka, as a first-class tourist resort, is a natural resource of Otago which is entitled to benefit from the same arguments as are applied to the northern provinces.

"This council demands that earlier promises to erect a hotel at Wanaka in 1964 be carried out,” the telegram concluded.

“This is just one more indication of the manner in which the interests of Otago are fobbed off,” said Mr Sidey. He said that the council had been pushing for years to persuade the Government to provide more accommodation at Queenstown. “After the Wanaka Hotel was destroyed by fire it was announced that the provision of suitable accommodation at Wanaka must take precedence over extensions at Queenstown, and this decision was readily accepted by the council."

But, Mr Sidey said, it was now announced that Waitangi was to have precedence over Wanaka. "In our opinion this action is a gross breach of faith on the part of the Government which controls the finances of the Tourist Hotel Corporation.” In his statement, the president of the Chamber of Commerce (Mr N. S. Mar-

quet) said: “We are unaware of any pressing need for a tourist hotel at Waitangi. We are, however, deeply concerned at the successive delays surrounding the replacement of the Wanaka Hotel and expect this is having an effect on the tourist traffic to Wanaka.

He said the chamber could not understand the reference made at the time the postponement was announced to the use of plans for the Waitangi hotel at Wanaka later.

“We understand that plans for the Wanaka hotel had been prepared, at least to a certain stage, some months ago,” the statement said.