Park Plan Commended

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32251, 20 March 1970, Page 1

Park Plan Commended

Convenience, economy, traffic flow, health and amenities were all large factors to be considered and balanced in adapting to new conditions of life and living, the Mayor (Mr A. R. Guthrey) said yesterday.

He was commenting on the realignment of Harper Avenue, and said that while the council appreciated the view of those who would protect Hagley Park and other reserves against any change, the council thought it must not be too conservative in a rapidly changing world.

The council's intention was merely to realign Harper Avenue to give a free, even flow of traffic, the Mayor said. This would help to improve safety and reduce pollution caused by the stopping and accelerating of vehicles. The deviation through the

park would open up attractive vistas and the balance of Harper Avenue would revert to parkland. There would be no appreciable increase in roadway and the part of reading reverting to parkland would be laid out attractively in trees.

The council had given long thought to a scheme affecting Hagley Park, Mr Guthrey said. Expert local town planners, who had given full weight to the merits of noninterference to the park, had favoured the present modest deviation. Independent advice had been sought from the most widely recognised city planning expert in the British Commonwealth, Professor Colin Buchanan. He had confirmed the scheme. When the scheme had been advertised there had been no objection. “The far-sighted pioneers in early legislation obtained express power to make further roads through the park,”

the Mayor said. “It was plain then, as it is now, that in spite of all the great merits attaching to complete preservation of a lovely parkland, the large Hagley Park area was in some measure an obstruction to convenient access.”

Mr Guthrey said he hoped that the many persons who valued parkland and were anxious that it should not be disturbed would reconsider the position, balance all the factors and co-operate in implementing a decision that had been made only after the most careful consideration.

The photograph shows a model of North Hagley Park with the proposed deviation of Harper Avenue from Its present junction with Bealey Avenue and Park Terrace on the right to Park Terrace and Salisbury, Street in the middle.