RIVER PROTECTION

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 84, 10 April 1931, Page 8

RIVER PROTECTION

(To the Editor.) Sir- 1 notice Mr. Hewer, chairman of the Hull Jtivcr Uuard, is reported in Wednesday's "Post" to have stated that the Halt County Council has not agreed to the subdivision in. Mabey road, Taita. Mr. Hmrcr is in error. The Hult County Cniiiii-il not. only agreed but a>o gave pevinits to build the two houses thereon. Ihc

Hirf.fc County Council probably realises that aIL that laud will be closely settled sooner or later, and it is up to the Hntt River Board to do its bomuleu duty to protect it.

It seems strange that though the Hutt Riven- Board was elected in the first place to endeavour to make the Lower Valley safe from flooding (hence the stop-bank), this 'board of lute years seems reluctant to face the responsibility of protecting the hundreds of acres extending from the Taita to below the Hutt golf links. .Does it think this land should take the risk of flooding for ever, and every year lose a few acres, as for instance the loss sustained by the golf links last flood? These hundreds of acres are of great value today, and in the course of time every square foot will bn needed, but if the present policy of the board is continued it will be a big, wide river-bed, nothing but shingle. It is time the work of fully protecting all this area was commenced, and as there are so many unemployed men about, the Hutt River Board would be> doing them a kindness, and posterity would have something to remember them by, if the work ■wore proceeded with. It is folly to have the men they have engaged at present cutting gorse (which has a bad habit of being as bad or worse in a few years) when an urgently needed protective work is neglected and a waste of land is.allowed to go on year by year.— I am, etc., . -'■'■ J. W. WALKER.