SERVICES STAFFS TO HAVE MORE ROOM

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 44, 15 November 1941, Page 8

SERVICES STAFFS TO HAVE MORE ROOM

Additions To Headquarters CRAMPED CONDITIONS TO END SHORTLY Navy, Army and Air Force staffs will be able to work under more comfortable conditions when the extensions to the present defence services building are completed. This is expected to be in a fortnight. The new building has a frontage of 230 feet to Featherston Street and 185 feet to Bunny Street, extending to alongside the Waterloo Hotel. The addition should ensure ample working room for all services staffs. A special feature is the use made of good-sized windows to take full advantage of natural light. This has been assisted by the ample space provided between the two wings of the building -which extend inward from the Bunny Street side to. near the north end of the existing main building. The Air Force will occupy most oi tho new building, in u complete east wing and extension middle wing from the Bunijy Street entrance to the hotel. The building Is two-storied, and on the Featherston Street frontage there is an almost full-length room for the army records section. On the street side clerks, typlstes and other staff will be accommodated and, separated by a wall, there Is a room of similar length on the inner frontage in which will be housed the records. Modern steel cabinets are to toe provided for the records. Between the two rooms there are communicating slides through which files can be passed out and returned. . From the Featherston Street side of the Bunny Street entrance to where the new building adjoins the old, the army will have most of the accommodation. Upstairs, however, the navy will have part of the building alongside its present offices in the old building and joined to them by a passageway. The erection of this new building meant the removal of several of the oldest buildings in this part of Wellington. The records staff were in one of these buildings which was moved, contents included, to a site at the end of the new mld-wlng. From here the records and equipment can be conveniently shifted into the new quarters. When completed the building will be in cream and make a splendid addition to that part of the city. The land on which it Is 'built was almost an eyesore previously, opposite the fine railway station and the externally renovated present defence services building. The tremendous increase in services personnel and civilian staff since the war made considerable demands on tho existing accommodation and most of those in the main building have been working under cramped conditions, some of the smallest rooms being occupied by three and four persons. This cramping will be no longer necessary with the completion of the new building and the important work done by all sections of the armed forces will be carried on under the conditions the staffs deserve.'