ENCROACHING SEA

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 68, 17 September 1930, Page 7

ENCROACHING SEA

TAKING OF BEACH SHINGLE

CONFERENCE HELD

The concern that has been felt by sonio of the local bodies in the Wellington district because of the encroachment of the sea as the result of shinglo being taken from the beaches was expressed in the House of Representatives last night by the Hon. B. A. Wright (Reform, Wellington Suburbs). Mr. Wright said that the Marine Department controlled the foreshore _below the high-water mark, and he wished to draw tho attention of the Minister .to the practice of some people of taking shinglo from this area. These people were taking away the natural barrier to the sea, and several local bodies were much concerned, but were unable to get the Department to act. In some places this "piracy" had become so bad that one could not walk along the foreshore without encroaching on private property. He hoped that the Department would devise some scheme to meet the position.

In the Thames district apparently tho position is somewhat different, because subsequently Mr. A. M. Samuel (Reform, Thames) asked whether the Department could draw up a scheme to enable local bodies and others to obtain shingle from the beaches in his electorate.

The Minister of Marine (the Hon. J. B. Donald) said that the practice of taking shingle from some of the beaches was a sorious one, and a conference had just taken, place between the Department and the Wellington City Council on tho matt&r. He hoped that something would be done in, the near future. In the Thames district the Department had no objection to the shingle being, taken, but the trouble was that the local bodies desired to control the royalties.