Heathcote wants amalgamation

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32565, 26 March 1971, Page 10

Heathcote wants amalgamation

The Heathcote County Council will call a meeting of local bodies in the Port Hills and Banks Peninsula area to discuss again amalgamating into one large county area.

Heathcote is dissatisfied with the North Canterbury area scheme being undertaken by the Local Body Commission. No word had come from the commission since it was in Christchurch towards the end of last year, Cr R. H. T. Thompson, chairman of the Heathcote county town planning committee, told a meeting of the council last evening. The committee had asked when draft proposals could be expected and the conunis-

sion’s secretary had replied that the proposals were printed but would not be available for several weeks. Cr J. McKenzie then referred to the scheme as “an abortive scheme that is going to strangle this county and one that is not in the interest of the ratepayers we represent.” He moved that a sub-com-mittee—the chairman (Cr J. S. Scott) and Crs Thompson, J. Somers and W. Laing—call a meeting of Peninsula local bodies and report any recommendations to the May meeting of the council. Cr Scott said he thought Cr McKenzie was surmising what the commission’s report would be, and that no useful purpose would come of calling a meeting of other local bodies.

Cr Thompson seconded the motion. Cr E. L. Tyndall said he would support it in the hope that other local bodies might have had a change of heart since the matter was last discussed.