Sumner lifeboat sinking

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 16

Sumner lifeboat sinking

As so • often happens, .a' single ■■ and conspicuous event, can focus attention on a public need that has been neglected. The plight of the Sumner Lifeboat Institution and its present inability to provide a service is an excellent example how, when all goes well, the need to support the institution is easily put aside and, when things go wrong, the need is suddenly apparent and the means to meet it are not available.

For longer than is comfortably remembered, the lifeboat service has sought the repair of the -slipway on which it launches and retrieves its vessel. Rescue . 111. One view in the Christchurch City Council, which is responsible for the , slipway, is that the. Lifeboat Institution may not be an essential part of. the coastal rescue service. Aircraft can be used to conduct searches and helicopters may be used to rescue people from the water or. from boats in trouble. The regularity with which the lifeboat service has been used successfully, and the economy and efficiency of a boat of this class, suggest that there is no good reason, to doubt its place among the Christchurch rescue services. If some other service could come to the rescue in all circumstances — commonly unfavourable to aircraft and other vessels — and could do the job more swiftly and economically, the institution would have given up its efforts years ago. Undoubtedly the institution survives partly because of the dedication of its members and because some sentiment and enthusiasm surrounds the adventure of

lifeboat rescues. The institution survives on more than these. Other coastal cities have their police launches and other rescue boats. Without the Sumner lifeboat a substitute would almost certainly be devised, just because the need would be apparent.

This must mean that the real argument is not about whether the slipway should be repaired but about whether, in all fairness, it is solely the Christchurch City Council’s responsibility to do the job. If councillors feel that the ratepayers are faced with a bill of, perhaps, $50,000 that should not be their burden alone, such/: a view is understandable. A" public ' argument over who should pay will take a long time, and much longer than should be taken to put the slipway in working order.

Even if the council resolves that the support of the institution is something to be shared more widely among local or national authorities, the council should not further delay the repair of the slipway. If councillors resolve that the institution is not needed and 1 thereby push both the responsibility and costs wholly on to someone else, they will have been reckless unless they have a complete assurance that someone else can dp the job as well, as promptly, and as economically. The institution does not have to be supported just because it is there, or because it has been there at Sumner for a long time; it has to be supported .because it is an essential part of the rescue services in Christchurch.