FIRE STATION SITES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 66, 20 March 1933, Page 6

FIRE STATION SITES

A BOARD INSPECTION

RATEPAYERS' VIEWS

Members of the If ire Board this morniug visited the Corporation Yard site offered to the board for a new station. Afterwards they visited the proposed site in Clyde Quay.

The ; question is- asked by the Wel- | lington Batepayers' Association whether the necessity for a. new fire station has been adequately considered by the City Council and Fire Board, in comparison with the cost to ratepayers. The board naturally is anxious for full efficiency, says the association in a statement, but it is the ratepayers who have to find the money, : half of it through rates or loan, and half by in--1 direct collection through fire insurance premiums. When many ratepayers are I unable to pay their rates, they are not anxious for added- burdens, and, unless the Fire Board can show that a newstation this year ig . a vital necessity for the city, then the. City Council, backed by its ratepayers and the citiizens in general, should insist on the postponement- of the project.

Assuming proof of the necessity for a new station, it is asked why city property cannot be used for the site. Land was offered by the city, a good site, for £19,000", whereas the school site would cost £25,000. With regard to the | £.19,000 proposition,' the Ratepayers' Association is' assured that there is ample proof that the site offered by the council to the Fire Board is a good one, and one on which an earthquakeproof building could De safely built. I