AIRPORT PLANS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 66, 11 December 1935, Page 19

AIRPORT PLANS

Curtailment of Playing Fields SPORTS BODIES ALARMED The intention of the ’Wellington City Council to enlarge the Rongotai aerodrome by taking hi a considerable portion of the area now utilised as playing fields for Rugby football and cricket has given much concern to sports bodies. The subject was referred to by the chairman of the management committee of the Wellington Rugby Union, Mr. J. N. Millard, at a meeting of the committee last night. “As one who has great admiration for the magnificent work that the present City Council and past councils have done in providing playing areas out of hills and gullies, and as chairman of the management committee of a body which controls the administration of a game providing recreation for some 4000 men, youths and boys weekly, ” said Mr. Millard, "I am naturally very concerned at. the proposal to extend the Rongotai aerodrome by absorbing the sports grounds in the Rongotai-Lyall Bay area. This proposal is going to affect sports bodies so vitally that I think we should ask the City Council to hold up the whole scheme until they have considered where their grounds of the future are to come from. The reserves department has gone to infinite trouble to turn the Rongotai sandhills into football and cricket grounds, and summer and winter these grounds are not sufficient to accommodate the youth of the city. The only possible extension of (he city’s grounds was blocked by the laying out of the present aerodrome, and now the council is proposing to cut In halves the big area known as the Lyall Bay and the Rongotai reserves.

“We, as a body, are not interested in the controversy over aerodrome sites except insofar as the choice may have a very.serious effect on the facilities for recreation of the people of the city, and I think we should ask the council not to take any action without going very fully into the question from every point of view.” Members of the committee endorsed Ibe chairman’s views, and, on the motion of Mr. G. F. W. Jackson, seconded by Mr. 11. D. Morgan, it was decided to forward a protest to the City Council against the proposal to cut the number of playing fields down from eleven to five in the Rongotai-Lyall Bay area.