The expressway shall not pass — if Muriel Soanes gets her way

Press, 25 October 1985, Page 18

The expressway shall not pass — if Muriel Soanes gets her way

By

KEN COATES

For 19 years, Muriel Soanes of Forfar Street, has lived with uncertainty. The house in which she was born 68 years ago is earmarked for demolition in the off-again, onagain St Albans expressway proposal. She still does not know whether her home will escape the bulldozer blade.

A slightly built retired office worker and music teacher, Ms Soanes has a note of weariness in her voice as she leafs through four bulky scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and letters. But be not deceived. She is an inveterate writer of letters to officialdom, an asker of questions, and a battler against planners who want to push a busy motorway through one of Christchurch’s longest established suburbs.

Gary Moore, chairman of the St Albans Residents’ Association says: “She is an inspiration to us as she has kept the battle against bureaucracy going for 19 years.” The proposed expressway, once proudly announced as a six-lane motorway but pruned to four lanes five years ago, has had a tortuous history.

When it was announced in 1983 that $l2 million worth of superfluous motorway land was to be sold, many people seem to have got the idea the plan had been scrapped rather than modified. But the residents’ association has been revived to present a case against the motorway at a Plan-

ning Tribunal hearing in December.

As a member of the committee, Muriel Soanes is knocking on doors and explaining why the car should not encroach into people’s living rooms.

She knows what it is like to live without knowing when, or even if, she will have to move. “All inquiries and letters have led nowhere, and I have never had any satisfaction as to what is happening,” she says. Ordinary household decisions like new carpets, wall-papering, and electrical wiring renewal tend not to be made.

“Most people can improve their homes in this way, but you are for ever thinking, what a waste of money if the house is to be bulldozed down.”

In 1980, residents objected at City Council hearings and the council resolved the plan should not go ahead. But the then Minister of Works, Mr Quigley, ruled to retain land designations along the route, leaving the way open for a motorway in the future.

Although the council of that time opposed a motorway, the present City Council has done a U-turn and will not support residents’ objections.

Over the years, many residents have let their properties run down because of uncertainty, says Ms Soanes. Others sold up soon after the first announcement in 1966, but received a raw deal in poor compensation from the Ministry of Works, she alleges.

This caused a blight through the whole “frozen corridor,” of land and resulted in few residents becoming committed to fighting for preservation of the suburban x environment. For a period Muriel Soanes was virtually the St Albans Residents’ Association, and the organisation went into recess when the last City Council was opposed to the motorway.

Withdrawal of council support has changed the picture, and a reinvigorated residents’ association plans a motorway protest meeting on Monday evening, at which the Associate Finance Minister, Mr David Caygill, will speak. ,

Ms Soanes counts the Minister among the residents’ most loyal supporters. That is not surprising. The proposed motorway would go through the drawing room window of his Berwick Street home.

She has been canvassing St Albans for members before the last chance that residents have to appeal against the Ministry of Works proposal. An upsurge of interest is reported, particularly from residents who did not know the scheme could still go ahead.

Muriel Soanes denies that the motorway has become a mania, but she does admit to a certain cynicism of officialdom gained from years of dealing with various authorities.

“I will be glad when the tribunal finally makes its decision and I know whether I am coming or going,” she says. “People just become figures along with numbers of cars, estimates of population and all that rubbish. I reckon the long years of uncertainty affect your life.” The four-lane expressway, starting at Esperance Street in the north and following Jamieson Avenue, Innes Road, Thames, Mersey, Forfar, Madras and Purchas

Streets, has been estimated to cost $36 million. As Ms Soanes says, with GST and inflation, it could be considerably more. As to the need for a motorway at all, she points to the expedient of ring roads used overseas to provide access to cities like London and Paris.

“To cut a city like Christchurch in half with a four-lane expressway seems ridiculous,” she says. Why has not Muriel Soanes sold to the M.O.W. and moved away like

dozens of others?

Tenacity, she supposes, remarking that others have moved and nothing has happened to the motorway proposal. “I don’t like to cower down; and anyway, I like living here. I’m familiar with the area and handy to everything.” Residents are supposed to receive market value for their properties, but she is not at all sure about that.

Yes, she could have the house shifted, at some cost, but then old

houses are not allowed to be resited in a new area. “It could be taken right out into the country, and I don’t really fancy that.” The brightly coloured ranunculus in the neat backyard beds seem to fade slightly as Ms Soanes wistfully recalls how once she grew a prize-winning garden.

That came to an end when she believed the authorities meant what they said ... and she sold the section next door.

City Council does U-turn