Twizel response ‘super’

Press, 1 April 1981, Page 2

Twizel response ‘super’

i Response to plans to save Twizel had been “super”, an Australian entrepreneur, Mr Howard Hall, said from Brisbane yesterday. Dealing with the Government on the proposal, however, had been “like dealing with a shadow,” Mr Hall said. “I have not been able to find anyone in the Government to talk to,” Mr Hall said.

The Minister of Works and Development (Mr W. L. Young) was reported yesterday as saying that Mr Hall had failed to come up with the basics of a workable scheme, and had not got an enthusiastic public response to his plans.

Mr Hall, however, said

that the 256 replies he had received . from people interested in buying a house in the town showed that the support for his scheme did exist. He would continue to advertise, Mr Hall said, and he would return to New Zealand in a month to assess the results. They would prove his scheme would work, he said.

Mr Hall said he had found nobody in the Government willing to talk about his scheme, and that “ . . . they will not tell me what a firm offer (for the town) will be.” In reply to Mr Young’s comment that he had no security finance, Mr Hall said he had not been able to ascertain what the Government would consider a security deposit.

A conditional offer of $lOO,OOO to buy the Tourist Hotel Corporation’s Twizel Hotel was considered by the corporation’s board yesterday. Mr D. H.v Warner, managing director of St Albans Real Estate, the firm engaged by Mr Hall to act as his agent in New Zealand, said yesterday that he believed the offer was “$50,000 more than any previous offer made for the hotel-motel complex.”

The complex is thought to have a book value of about $400,000. The purchase of the hotel is conditional Jupon Mr Hall’s .purchase of; tfre township Of Twizel, - and the $lOO,OOO .includes, the

buildings, chattels and fittings- The stock would be bought at valuation. Between them, Mr Hall and Mr Warner’s real estate firm had received 240 replies from people wanting to buy property in Twizel. At an average of $12,000 for a property, that interest represented $2,880,000 in cash for the township, he said. One of the options that Mr Warner and Mr Hall are considering is forming a new borough council in Twizel, to by-pass the Mackenzie County Council.

Mr Warner said he believed that only 200 residents were needed to form a. borough council, and there was every possibility that Twizel residents would do just that.