‘Summer Lost’— Professor Lewis

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31340, 10 April 1967, Page 3

‘Summer Lost’ — Professor Lewis

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 9. The opportunity to dig the foundations for Auckland’s medical school in the finer summer months has been lost, the dean of the school (Professor C. Lewis) said yesterday.

On Friday the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) said that building the foundations and the first stage of the medical school would be let as a single contract Professor Lewis said that now there was no advantage in dividing the contract as the opportunity to use the months from September had been lost. “We have no authority to get on with the business of staffing,” he said. “Equipment will also be a nightmare now with import restrictions.

“It is one thing to keep a department going with replacement of equipment, but we have to start from scratch —everything from chalk to a microscope.” Minister Replies The delays to date were due to the fierce Auckland arguments over the various sites and had not been of Government’s making, Mr Kinsella said yesterday. He attacked statements by Professor Lewis blaming the Government for alleged delays as “misleading and. irresponsible.”

“Plans for Stage I of the building are being prepared by the university’s own architects and are not yet finished,” he said.

“Professor Lewis knows full well that local appeals to the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board and the Newmarket Borough Council’s opposition to the site have been resolved only in the last fortnight.”

Today Mr A. R. Turner, chairman of the planning division, Auckland Regional Authority, entered the fray and came down heavily on the side of Professor Lewis. Stating that he was amazed at the Minister for levelling the blame at Auckland, Mr Turner said that the Government had allowed itself to be challenged by the smallest local body—Newmarket Borough Council. “The sad and sorry histoiy of the medical school site is a result of Government indecision, delay and lack of statesmanship on a project of national importance,” he said.