Hamner pools group ‘has done all it can’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34127, 13 April 1976, Page 20

Hamner pools group ‘has done all it can’

The Hanmer Springs Thermal Poo Is Development Association feels it has done all it can to build a thermal-pools complex a t Hanmer, and will invest money raised for the project with the Amuri County Counci 1, which will take over the project.

The chairman of the association (Mr A. D. Mclvor) said the association had foundered because it did not have any authority over the land or buildings. There had been a succession of setbacks from 1970 onwards.

The association hopes that after the freeze on local body loans is lifted in September. the Amuri County Council will be able to apply for a small loan. It also

hopes that the Government will give a dollar-for-dollar subsidy on the money the association has raised, which is now about $45,000. The association had approached successive Prime Ministers since 1970, and tried to raise loans. “The association is still very much alive, though,”

said Mr Mclvor: “We are prepared to keep; a very strong interest in the pools. We pledged ourselves to get pools in Hanmer, and we are going to get them,” he said. Labour subsidy The association had asked the local member of Parliament, Mr E. G. Latter, to approach the Government for financial help, and to seek the transfer of ownership of a physiotherapy block, now owned by the North Canterbury Hospital Board, to the Amuri County Council.

The complex is expected to cost about $200,000. If the physiotherapy building could be used for changing sheds, the cost might be cut to about $150,000. A bore had been completed in September, last year that had proved that there was enough water for the project. - Mr Mclvor said that plans had then been put forward to the Loans Board, but they had always been vetoed because various Government Departments felt that the plans were hot up to the standard that the potential of the area warranted. The plans had faltered, despite the Labour Government’s promising a dollar-for-dollar subsidy, and then the National Government had come to power. Costs triple

“Everyone agrees that there is potential in the area, but no-one is prepared to give us money,” said Mr Mclvor. Mr Mclvor said that the

existing pools, now administered by the North Canterbury Hospital Board, were very run down. However, the association had managed to keep them open, and was now running the tea kiosk itself.

Money raised by the association over the years was invested at present. If the project foundered, everyone would get his money bad:.

He estimated that construction costs had tripled since 1970, when the association had been incorporated.