The $250,000 bargain

Press, 27 August 1977, Page 14

The $250,000 bargain

Each year, between them, the Town Hall and Queen Elizabeth II Park fail to earn enough revenue to cover the cost of running them. The ratepayers of the various local bodies in the Christchurch area have had to come up with about one million dollars to cover these deficits. Measured against this sum, a quarter of a million dollars spent over five years to secure the ownership for the people of Christchurch of the former University of Canterbury as an arts centre is small beer. The 5250.000 is the sum which the Arts Centre Board has estimated will be needed to bring the buildings into good repair and to protect them adequately against fire and earthquake and which it will not be able to find from its regular sources of income. The estimate may prove optimistic and the local bodies have to come up with rather more to get the job done. But

even if the figure has to be doubled, spending that amount to secure the buildings permanently’ as an arts centre will seem a very good bargain. The amount needed to bring the buildings up to standard might not be the end of the ratepayers’ liability for the Arts Centre. But if the occasional supplement from local body funds proves necessary, the funds should come equitably from the ratepayers of the whole metropolitan area, as too must the money needed over the next five years for repairs and improvements. Because of its position in the city, the centre is already serving people from all parts of Christchurch, perhaps to a greater extent than Queen Elizabeth II Park. Not all ratepayers or members of their families will, of course, make use of the Arts Centre, but all will be entitled to feel pride when the centre passes formally into the hands of the people of Christchurch.