Darfield v. The Rest?

Press, 29 July 1978, Page 16

Darfield v. The Rest?

Malvem County is unusual in that it has no tradition of unity. In its present form it dates only from the early 19605, when Malvem, Tawera, and Selwyn counties amalgamated, and some residents in each area still regard their districts as autonomous.

Even the name, "Malvern,” is regarded with disfavour by some, who feel that the county should be called "Selwyn,” because this name is niuch older.

Once the whole district was known as Selwyn, but that was in Victorian times. The original Selwyn County stretched from Riccarton to Arthur’s Pass, taking in what is now Riccarton Borough, large parts of the present Waimairi County, and most of Ellesmere. It was split up in 1904.

In the 1960 s amalgamation part of Selwyn went into Ellesmere County, giving it a tongue of land stretching up the Rakaia River to Te Pirita. One of the councillors for the Selwyn riding of Malvem actually lives in Ellesmere, though part of his farm is in Malvem. But this councillor is not among the opponents of the council’s scheme. He has stated publicly his support for it, and he told a meeting at Hororata that while he did not think the proposals were without faults, ratepayers should support them because something had to be done urgently. Nevertheless, the controversy over the scheme has polarised in the minds of a small minority to an issue of "Darfield versus the Rest.” Though it is the only town of any size in the county, Darfield is also the youngest. Springfield, headquarters of the former Tawera County, is much older, and so are other townships, such as Coalgate and Glentunnel, which date from the 1860 s. At the turn of the century, Darfield did not exist: it was then called “Homdon Junction.”

Ironically, it is largely the rapid growth of Darfield in the last 10 years that has made the new complex essential today.

The Darfield Domain, which has been a blank spot in the township for

years, was originally 10 acres, and was increased to 30 by land purchases in the early 19705. Apart from the Malvem Squash Rackets Club’s newish courts, it has only a very old and inadequate pavilion. Plans for its development have been bandied about for years, and a detailed landscaping plan was prepared by Lincoln College, but until now none has got past the talk stage. Now that the council has got past talking, the objectors to its scheme say they have been given no proper opportunity to make their view's heard, and that the council has deliberately misinterpreted their objections.

The petition called only for a poll of ratepayers on the raising of the loan, but the organisers say this is because legal advice was that there was no other way in which they could bring the matter to public debate. Their real purpose was to get the council back to the original scheme.

They say they are confident that a majority of ratepayers share their view that the sports centre and the cultural centre should be separate, and point to the public meetings he’d by the council as evidence in support of this. In fact, this assertion is open to question, because although voting at the meetings did tend to support the objections, and at least one meeting passed a resolution asking the council to go ahead only with the sports facilities in the meantime, leaving the question of a cultural centre .open, total attendance at the four meetings was only about 350 — less than half the number who signed the petition.

The council assumes that those who signed the petition but did not go to the meetings are now satisfied with the scheme. But one farmer w'ho helped to circulate the petition believes that many people stayed away from the meetings because they considered them a w’aste of time. The council had struck its rate before the round of meetings began, and the domain scheme was a fait accompli. If the meetings had been held first, and the rate struck later, he said, there

might have been some point in them. This was virtually admitted by the county chairman (Mr George Wright) at the Hororata meeting, when he was asked directly whether any resolution passed at the meetings could affect the council’s decision. Mr Wright said it could not, "this year, at least.” The County Clerk (Mr Brian Perrin) has defended the council’s timing. Although the petition first circulated in February, it was not handed to the council until April. At that stage there was not time for the council to meet the objections expressed in the petition, prepare a brochure setting out the options open to it, and call the meetings before striking its rate. If the special rate for the first instalment on the scheme had not been struck, a delay of another year, perhaps two, would have been inevitable. Already talk about the scheme had dragged on for nine years. It was time for action.

In any case, the door is not completely closed to changes, as the council says in its pamphlet: “If there are strong demands for changes, and if they can be incorporated in the plans without adding to the cost, the council will consider them.” And this willingness was confirmed at the last council meeting.

Mr Perrin says the council is acting now because although the new scheme represents a compromise, it is a positive one. It might not please everybody; but unless something was done immediately, there is a very real possibility that nothing would ever be done. He believes that a county must have a focal point—a place for youth activities, a place for meetings, social functions, concerts, and other cultural activities as well as physical activities such as sport and dancing. Malvem County has no such centre. Of the eight halls in the county, six were built more than 60 years ago, and two of them are not owned by the county. Local fund-raising efforts, and subsidies from the council, have brought them all up in recent years

to reasonably modem standards—all except the Darfield hall, which is in poor condition, past the stage at which it is easy or economic to maintain.

Now that the council’s case has been put clearly before them, it seems that few ratepayers dispute the need for a cultural centre for the county—though there seems to be the potential for an unfortunate split between urban ratepayers and the rural ones, who will be faced with a much higher portion of the cost.

Several farmers complained at the meetings that the extra cost to an average farm of the council’s scheme would be as much as $7O this year, while an urban ratepayer with a high income might pay less than $5. Mr Wright dismissed this question lightly, pointing out that farm rates are tax deductible, where as often rates are not, and that the extra was only $3.70 per $lO,OOO of value, not a high rate..

A more serious question, in the minds of many ratepayers, is Whether the cultural and sports centres should be combined, and

indeed whether the facilities proposed will be adequate. Mr Perrin believes they are compatible, and for the other part, says that the project must be viewed in terms of what the county can afford. If the council switched back to its original proposals now it might be faced with a bill of half a million dollars or more. Its revenue simply could not sustain this. One councillor who agrees with Mr Perrin in both regards is Cr Gwen Clucas, a newcomer to the council in the elections last November, when she deposed a sitting member in her riding, Selwyn.

Cr Clucas says she had come to the controversy over the scheme with an open mind, and had called for all the documents the council had available on it. After studying these, she was convinced the council was doing the right thing; some people had said the scheme was inadequate, but on present projections it was big enough to meet demands into the next century, and there would be time enough in the next 25 years to plan something more elaborate.

Others had said it was too expensive. But the county had to have it, and once it was built ratepayer's would realise this, Cr Clucas says. In her thinking on this, some Christchurch residents may detect an echo of the controversy in Christchurch several years ago over Queen Elizabeth II Park—a controversy which the Christchurch City Council stilled by goine ahead anyway, and creating an institution of wiucn the city’s residents Were to become proud.