PUBLIC MARKETS SITES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 151, 20 March 1908, Page 5

PUBLIC MARKETS SITES.

A SUGGESTION. One of the chief reasons for tlio hesitancy of the City Council in the matter of establishing public markets in Wellington is the lack of a suitablo site. Councillors are divided in opinion as to whether markets would be a success in this city, hut this deliberation and difference of opinion would not have existed to tho same extent had there been suitablo land available for a site. There arc two alternative sites that offer an opportunity for testing the public market question. Tho .first, and probably the better, site is the lower end of tho northern half of Cambridge Terraco. This site has been suggested before, and .objections raised against it, but there can !7e no doubt that it is an eyesore at present. The trees are drab and stunted, the fence posts broken down, and the chains between broken away altogether, or are wrapped around tho posts. Where there is grass, it is coarse and patchy, and generally, as a city. reserve, it is a disgrace, and it would bo infinitely better to see the block covered by a commodious building that would bo serving somo useful purpose.

The other site, or rather sites, that suggest themselves in conniii2 over market sites are in the same vicinity. The reference is to tho two fonced-in plantations of tfees at either end of Courtenav Place. Anyone who knows Courtenay Place, knows th.at these reserves are far from being as ornamental as thoy are intended to be. It would bo feasible to transform one of these plantations into a fish, meat, and poultry market, and the other into a depot for: vegetables, fruit, and produce. They are only a few hundred yards apart, and could be supervised by the one staff. Thoy are in the centro of the city, and are oxcellently served by the tramway. .

The market trade has migrated to that portion of tho city within the last two years, and it is close to the railway station and water-front, and is in tho'centre of a thicklypopulated part of the city.

With two such sites to choose between, the Council, which! has signified its disinclination to abandon the market proposition, might give an earnest of its reason for negativing Councillor Biss's shelving motion, by seriously going into tho' matter of a site for a market.