WORRIES OVER SPORTS GROUND

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31726, 9 July 1968, Page 14

WORRIES OVER SPORTS GROUND

The Christchurch Technical Institute is concerned about a proposal of the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) to proclaim as Crown land the Ensors Road playing fields of about 10 acres used by the institute for more than 50 years.

The institute’s board of governors last evening authorised the chairman (Mr R. Jones) and the principal (Mr D. W. Lyall) to obtain legal opinion as to what steps the board might take to defer any move until a meeting ofall interested parties had been held. In his letter to the chairman, Mr Kinsella suggested that such a meeting be held. He said that the playing fields were sought for general educational purposes. To take the land by a proclamation indicated that the Education Department was unable to obtain it by any other method, said Mr C. Russell. He was disappointed at Mr Kinsella’s “drastic” action.

Mr Jones said the board should advise Mr Kinsella it

A suggestion that the board challenge the Minister's right to take the land the way he proposed was made by Mr P. G. Scoular. “As occupiers we must have some rights at law,” he said. Other suggestions made included petitioning either the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) or the Governor-Gen-eral (Sir Arthur Porritt) to intercede before the land was proclaimed Crown land by an Order-in-Council. The Minister’s closing suggestion that a meeting of al! interested Jodies be held met with the approval of the board. This was exactly what the board had itself proposed to the Minister a year ago, said Mr Lyall.

was fiot concerned about ownership of the land but only about the responsibility for it and use of IL “We owe it to the people who purchased the land to see that it is used for the purposes they originally intended,” he said. The land was obtained piecemeal by the enthusiastic supporters of the Technical College and not by the Education Department, said Mr Jones.