The Hagley Park hill

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33290, 30 July 1973, Page 12

The Hagley Park hill

The Deputy Mayor (Cr R. M. Macfarlane) has said that the Christchurch City Council is prepared to withdraw a clause from its local bill now before Parliament — a clause that exempts the proposed action of the council from the Town and Country Planning Act. The Christchurch City (Reserves) Empowering Amendment Bill has the simple purposes of repealing part of a schedule in the 1971 act which would have closed the eastern end of Harper Avenue, adding an acre and a quarter to Hagley Park, and would have enabled the avenue to be realigned through the north-east corner of the park. The amending bill also proposes that some land in Hagley Park cease to be reserved land — the council's intention being that this land will be used to enlarge the avenue and permit the building of another bridge at the Carlton Mill intersection. A preamble to the bill would have made the council’s intention clear to Parliament, where the bill has foundered on objections from both sides of the House.

The extraordinary clause is that which exempts the council — in respect of the contents of the bill — from the Town and Country Planning Act. The council may have thought that the inclusion of such a clause would have secured its scheme beyond any possible challenge. Such a provision is probably superfluous — and it contrasts oddly with the general purpose of the act: the “ conservation and “ economic development of the region . ” Local authorities — the Christchurch City Council among them — have from time to time urged that Government departments should be bound by the act: and only recently has the Electricity Department been instructed to abide by the laws protecting the Summit Road on the Port Hills. The council’s impatience with the act on this occasion might have unfortunate repercussions, unless the offending clause is withdrawn.

The council has yet to satisfy Parliament why the new plan for Harper Avenue is better for the park, and for all who use the park — and better for the management of city traffic — than the plan submitted to Parliament two years ago. Although the plan is probably the best that can be devised, given the constraints which the majority of councillors have accepted, it is a piecemeal and short-sighted scheme. It sacrifices the broader objects of traffic planning in order to dispose of a single intersection problem that is, in itself, of no great moment. Assuming that the council can persuade Parliament that the inferior plan should be followed, the bill would be much improved if it contained a binding declaration of the standards for roads on park land. Nothing in this bill, or its predecessor, protects the environs of the park; it does no more than enable the taking of land.