Objections To Park Motorway

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 10

Objections To Park Motorway

Sir, —Regarding the letter in your newspaper written by Mr H. Barrett, I wish to state that I and Councillor Stillwell, as well as Councillors Pickering . and Skellerup, voted against the proposed motorway in Hagley Park at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. I would also advise your correspondent that at the council meeting when the decision was made to adopt the scheme which included the road through the park the then Mayor (Sir George

Manning) and the seven Labour councillors voted against it; we suggested an alternative scheme. All the Citizens’ councillors, including Councillor Skellerup, voted for the roadway. The voting was 12 votes to 8. The works committee, because of the letter received from the Minister of Lands, now has to consider objections. I believe that, because of the public interest in this matter, the proceedings of the committee should be open to the press. At Tuesday’s meeting I asked if this would be done but received an answer in the negative.—Yours, etc., R. M. MACFARLANE. March 20, 1970.

Sir, —Planners for the future are really only planning an extension of the present, i.e., we have a million cars now and that means 11 millions within such and such a period. But does it? According to world health pundits the whole system of uncontrolled motoring will have to be overhauled if mankind is to avoid a health crisis from air pollution. How this control can be achieved would seem to be of greater importance than the creation of new motorways through open spaces hitherto undefiled by petrol fumes. If Hagley Park, like its London counterparts, can be described us “the lungs of the city” it will be a pretty poor organ once it has to carry an X number of motorists and their fumes in ever-increasing numbers. I can imagine the reflections of citizens throughout the world surveying some 20 to 50 years hence ruined open spaces with elaborate but deserted motorways: “I wonder who the poor benighted fools were who were made to pay for that?”—Yours, etc., I. TREW. March 20, 1970.

Sir, —As a resident of the city of Christchurch, I have enjoyed for some years cycling and walking in the quiet of North Hagley Park. I thank the early settlers of Christchurch who anticipated the growth of Christchurch and conserved this area of beautiful parkland so near the centre of the city. It is with dismay and sadness I read of the Christchurch City Council’s proposal to construct a motorway through North Hagley Park. Surely this cannot be the wish of the majority of Christchurch citizens?—Yours, etc., G. COMERFORD. March 19, 1970.

Sir, — A united acceptance of the Hagley Park motorway would only prove that many objectors had acquiesced because the Mayor publicly supports the scheme. Council elections showed that the Citizens’ Association candidates gained the most votes and they favoured the transportation plan. But now some Citizen councillors are against the intrusion into the park and opinion has changed. Just recently in an affluent Washington (United States) suburb, a virtually spontaneous upsurge of public opinion prevented the completion of a freeway which had been planned for years to link through public parks. To those who have seen the mass destruction caused by the city motor-car overseas it sometimes becomes a matter of personal honour to combat the car’s continued intrusion into city living space. The Government has said there is nothing wrong in re-opening the inquiry into this motorway. What is wrong with a change of heart, providing it is a virtuous one?—Yours, etc.,

PATRICK NEARY. March 20, 1970.

Sir, —It is extraordinary that the controversy over the small section of motorway across the northern part of Hagley Park should have been revived. The proposal evoked much greater controversy; and correspondence than any

other matter of public interest that I can remember. It was finally settled by Professor Colin Buchanan, brought here at considerable public expense, who reported: “We see no reasonable way of avoiding the Fendalton motorway across the park.” Let the critics remember (1) the Ordinance of 1855 that declared Hagley Park to be reserved for ever as a public park specifically made provision for the laying out of “public roads through the park,” a point never referred to by the critics; (2) the part of the park occupied by the motorway will be balanced by the return to the park of Harper Avenue. — Yours, etc..

OBSERVER. March 20, 1970.

Sir, —It was quite refreshing to see the comments from “Two Far-seeing Students.” Any intelligent survey of world opinion regarding the automobile, in particular, shows that such an anti social mode of transport is on the way out, that the isolation of pollutive vehicles from concentrations of people is sanitary, and that cities, per se, are anachronisms. The destruction of a tree, the smothering of grassland in a built-up area to allow everyone the right to use some 240 cubic feet of lethal, gas-producing machinery in order to travel a journey of doubtful necessity, has become an addiction that shatters privacy and now threatens the very mechanism of life. Transport, like sewers, should not only be isolated, but treated.—Yours, etc.,

PEDESTRIAN. March 20, 1970.

Sir, —The Mayor has asked people to look at the future of Christchurch and give quicker and easier flow of traffic through the park. Your picture illustrates (he proposals. Might I suggest that, instead of so many trees, let us take some time in putting this road through the park. I can see this being made into one of the most beautiful driveways. Trees are good, but they take goodness out of the soil and in time the roadway would be cracked by the roots. I would like to see on both sides beautiful gardens with flowers, shrubs, and something that people will enjoy.—Yours, etc., BRIGHTER ROADWAY. March 20, 1970.