Chamber speaks out for disabled venue

Press, 4 March 1989, Page 9

Chamber speaks out for disabled venue

By

KAY FORRESTER

The Canterbury Chamber of Commerce is urging the Education Department to reconsider its decision to oust the Disabled Persons Centre from its Worcester Street site. The chamber says the decision to move the centre out to provide space for the Four Avenues Alternative High School is a grave injustice. Endorsing comments made by a past president, Mr Martin Jolly, the chamber believes the department does not appreciate the value of the centre. The disabled centre has used the Education Department’s premises at 314 Worcester Street for the last six years. More than 40 organisations use the centre. Last year the department told the centre it could not guarantee tenure because of the changes in education. The manager of the centre, Mr Graham Stanley, doubts the organisation will be able to find another venue as well located or affordable. Mr Jolly said the department’s arguments that the high school needed a venue to cater for a growing roll did not

take into account the needs of those already using the Worcester Street building. “It would seem obvious that the plight of the large number of disabled people, thrown out on to the street, would be far more difficult to resolve than the relocation of the school catering for physically competent young,” he said. The regional executive officer for the department in Christchurch, Mr Kevin Bennett, said the Disabled Persons Centre Trust had been using the building since 1982. It had never had any guarantee of tenure. The trust’s licence to use the premises expires in December of this year and it had been given notice to vacate then. Mr Bennett said the Four Avenues School was a department responsibility and the priority had been to find it premises. “The disabled centre is not a department responsibility. That might sound harsh, but that’s the reality,” he said. The Worcester Street site was the best for the Four Avenues School. It was unlikely another department property could be found for either the school or for the disabled centre to use, he said.