FORESHORE RIGHTS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 262, 1 August 1929, Page 7

FORESHORE RIGHTS

RECLAMATION IN EVANS BAY HARBOUR BOARD’S POWERS With all the talk and letter writing to the Press, and the formation of protesting societies to protect the foreshore at Evans Bay, it may interest the public to know that there is no definite movement on the part of the Wellington Harbour Board to proceed with the reclamation of the southern end of Evans Bay. It is true that the board has legislative authority under the Wellington Harbour Board Reclamation and Empowering Act of 1908 to borrow money for the prosecution of this work, but since then there has been no defined purpose on the part of the board to proceed actively with the work, for the simple reason that there is at present no need for it. There is no call for waterfront lands for factories, warehouses, Harbour Board sheds, or anything of the kind on the southern shore of the bay. All there is. to suggest a possibility for the future is the existence of the Act mentioned, and the contingency that as Wellington continues to grow the long shallow shore mentioned could be very easily and. comparatively cheaply reclaimed. This applies particularly to the stretch of inshore water between Shag Point and the Kilbirnie ! Reserve, where ebb tide reveals between two and three hundred yards of beach. The board’s powers are fairly 'extensive, but there is no reason to believe that they will ever be used arbitrarily; still, that body with its reserves and resources must of necessity keep in the vanguard as far as harbour improvements are concerned, if the same can be done without increasing the port charges. Provisions of Act. ' The Act referred to states amidst i other “whereases” that “it is desirable that the board shall have power to • acquire other lands, and to carry out reclamations with the object of providing sites upon which engineering and other industries may be carried on; and whereas an agreement has been entered into between the board and the Corporation of the Borough of Miramar; and whereas by a special Order of the Gover-nor-in-Council dated May 25, 1905, the board was authorised to reclaim from the sea certain lands therein described as a site for boat-sheds, etc., • etc.,” it is enacted that certain lands (in various . schedules) may be reclaimed from the sea. There were no fewer than seven of . these schedules. The first three cover modest 9, 6 and 4-acre areas, between the Miramar Wharf and Shag Point. The fourth schedule (128 acres) takes in the whole of the foreshore across the southern extremity of Evans Bay, and thence in a northerly direction “partly along the seaward boundary of the Evans Bay Road and partly along high-water mark to the starting point.” The fifth schedule provides for another 20 acres off the Evans Bay Road, the sixth schedule includes another 69 acres, extending the reclamation rights up to the “reserve vested in the Wellington Patent Slip Company (Ltd.).” The surprise schedule, however, is the seventh, which ’ gives the board the right to reclaim no fewer than 245 acres of water, in the Bay, and would, if carried into effect, mean the reclamation of the waters of the Bay past the Patent Slip, sftne distance to sea, and so northward to a point on the southern extremity of Ballena Bay. It will be seen from the above particulars that the board has power to reclaim about 482 acres of water area, on the southern and western shores of the Bay—a much greater area than has been assumed by those who are agi- ■ fating against the public being deprived of waterfront privileges—privileges which, do not exist. In the Vanguard. There has never been a time within the last generation when the Harbour Board has not. been employed on some more or less important work which has meant the gradual building-up of the port to its present state of efficiency. The big work now in progress is the Kaiwarra bight reclamation, which provides over seventy acres of new land at a place where it is most needed for the development of the railway system at the entrance to Wellington, and will, it is hoped, provide a new highway into the city, as well as providing half a mile of new berthage for vessels visiting the This work is approaching completion, and it is on that account perhaps that some people are inclined to believe that the board will next turn its attention to the southern end Of Evans Bay. Whilst that might be the case, it can only be stated that so far that matter has not even been discussed in the open by the board. There is going to be a great deal of stubborn opposition to the reclamation at Evans Bay from those who have come to regard the western foreshore as their inalienable right as a bathing resort in the summer months. Not only do these bathing places serve the whole of Kilbirnie and Hataitai, but large numbers journey over the Constable Street hill from Wellington South to have a dip in the morning and evening, and the aggregate voice of these people will not be as one crying in the wilderness. Time Greatest Arbiter.

Time is a great arbiter in these matters. It may come about in ten or fifteen years that there will be a space pressure in Wellington East that will justify the board exercising its privilege under statutory powers, and that the board would do very well to reclaim a hundred acres of the existing shallows, but, as things are at present, that contingency is fairly remote, as the spur of necessity is lacking. That, however, may not prevent those interested in pushing for some amendment to the Act, so as to provide for bathing accommodation within the area of reclamation specified in that; measure.