ASSURANCE SOUGHT

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 16

ASSURANCE SOUGHT

Post Office By 1978

Not satisfied with the refusal of the PostmasterGeneral (Mr Scott) to bind future governments to completing the Christchurch post office complex by 1978, the council of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce decided last evening to ask the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) to bind future governments. The council endorsed a decision of the postal committee to place its views on the postal complex before the Prime Minister and ask for his assurance that the programme announced last November would be adhered to and that the Government intended to complete the complex by 1978. The committee's chairman (Mr J. Stewart) referred in the report to a meeting with the Postmaster-General on April 15. He said that at that meeting Mr Scott refused to ask the Government to deciare its intention to complete the final stage of the complex by the end of 1978. Mr Scott said that no government could bind its successor. Mr Stewart said that his committee disagreed. Governments must plan ahead. Telephone equipment required for the new building had to be ordered from overseas three years ahead of . delivery. It would be absurd to think that there would not be buildings waiting for the equipment.