CROWN LAND SALE

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32715, 18 September 1971, Page 19

CROWN LAND SALE

Public access assured While the public was not! permitted unlimited access, provision had been made for access to the river and bush beyond, said the DirectorGeneral of Lands (Mr R. J. Maclachlan), in a letter received by the Waimairi County Council in reply to its questions on the sale of i 2500 acres to a foreign syndicate, Takaro Properties, Ltd. Mr Maclachlan said that the block was Crown land on the Upukerora River (which discharges into Lake Te Anau) and until sold, had been part of the 35,000 acre Dale farm settlement development block, remote and {unsettled.

The land comprised unimjproved tussock, some scrub,: !and scattered bush. While' {this was Crown land the public could not enter it, except {on permit. The intention had[ been to dispose of the land: [for a cattle run, and at that stage the public would have! had no right of entry. In the sale of Takaro Properties, a strip of land a; chain wide had been reserved from sale on the Upukerora: River along either bank and! its tributary. This gave gene- ; ral public access up the river.' Little or no native bush was I included in the land sold. { “Public access to the land was never very freely available," said Mr Maclachlan. ‘The sale has left the situation generally unchanged and, if anything, improved by the provision of high-class accommodation on land that was previously unused, and rarely visited.” Cr A. A. Adcock, who originally raised the question of public access, said he had recently visited the land, and was happier and better informed. He thought that New Zealanders who had been responsible for the butchery of the countryside at Te Anau could learn a great deal from the Takaro conservation and development measures.