Survey Of Needs For Sewerage At Harewood

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30764, 31 May 1965, Page 14

Survey Of Needs For Sewerage At Harewood

Sixty-one houses in unsewered streets at Harewood had drainage difficulties, most of them serious, the president of the Harewood “We Want Sewerage” Association (Mr J. Richards) said yesterday. A survey of the district in the last three weeks, he said, also showed that 204 children, mostly of primary school age and younger, lived in the 101 homes in the area. Mr Richards said the survey had been made by signed questionnaire. He was prepared to make all information available to the Christchurch Drainage Board or other interested authorities. The survey had also shown that 50 families in the affected streets of Trafford street, Crafton road, Gardiner's road and Harewood road, had spent a total of £1512 from their own pockets in attempts to combat drainage problems, he said. The money had been spent on cleaning septic tanks, laying field drains, sinking gravel pits and other drainage activities. Much of it had had little effect, because of the high water table in the area and the elay nature of the ground. Mr Richards said 15 cases of sickness in the area were believed by the residents concerned to be attributable to the drainage and associated health problems. One case was suspected hepatitis. A meeting of seriously affected residents on Saturday morning had formed the as-

sociation, Mr Richards said. Until Saturday’s meeting, the action group was known unofficially as the “Stink Alley Association.”

To make the most effective use of the documentary evidence obtained in the survey, the association elected an executive committee, comprising a president, secretary and a committee of six.

The executive represents 101 households in four adjacent Harewood streets. The association, at Saturday’s meeting, decided to make an official reply to criticism by five anonymous Trafford street residents, published in “The Press” on Saturday. Mr Richards said the association had, at all times, intended to make an orthodox, constitutional approach to the Drainage Board. It had never intended otherwise. This was the sole purpose of the survey.

Several residents had already written to the Drainage Board but had got nowhere, he said. The residents this time were determined not to be stymied, nor to have their case pigeon-holed. Mr Richards said the five residents who had made a statement to “The Press” dissociating themselves from the actions of the group were merely bystanders, and a minority group in the area. The five residents and all others in the district were invited by both questionnaire, pamphlet and newspaper publicity to attend Saturday’s meeting.

1 The voices of the five anonymous residents had been conspicuous at the meeting. by their absence. Mr Richards said a delegation from the association would wait on the Waimari County Council as soon as an appointment could be made.