MEMORIAL AVE. BERMS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30365, 14 February 1964, Page 13

MEMORIAL AVE. BERMS

Deadlock On Upkeep

A deadlock has arisen about the mowing of grass berms on Memorial avenue outside educational properties between Greers and Grahams roads. The Waimairi County Council recently informed property owners in Memorial avenue that they should accept responsibility for keeping these lawns trim. The Burnside High School Board had earlier accepted responsibility for mowing its strip, but asked the Education Department to allow extra hours for its groundsman. The Canterbury Education Board, in which is vested vacant land between the high school and Grahams road (the proposed site of a future teachers' college), has asked the Burnside High School whether its groundsmen could also tend the avenue berm outside this site. The Education Department has declined to grant Burn-, side groundsmen any extra time for this work. With gang mowers, two acres an hour could be covered, so that Bomside mowing should take 10 hours, leaving plenty of time for other work and the berms, the department said. The headmaster (Mr C. Cross) told his board last evening that this sounded all right on paper, but a tremendous amount of other work had to be done. The berms could not be done with gang mowers as they had trees in plots.

The Burnside High School agreed that it should maintain the berms and would gladly do so if a little extra time was allowed, said Mr Cross. It would also attend to the Education Board’s strip under the same conditions. The chairman (Professor N. M. MacElwee) said attention to lawn strips was not comparable to the straight run of mowing playgrounds. New schools on back land had no frontage at all to maintain. Burnside was a special case. Burnside, said Professor MacElwee. agreed with the Waimairi County Council that the berms “add something to the approach to Christchurch from the airport” and that adjoining property holders should take pride in them.