COLLEGE ACCESS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 77, 1 April 1933, Page 12

COLLEGE ACCESS

CONFERENCE NEXT WEEK

SOLUTION ANTICIPATED

There have been no further developments regarding the threatened closing of access front Buckle and Tasman Streets to the Wellington Technical College, as the contractors for the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum building, the Fletcher Construction Company, apparently may legally do -when they fence in the. building area, preparatory to beginning the construction work. , The contractors do not wish to' deprive the college students and staff of the convenient access through the Art Gallery and Museum grounds'to ;he college, and the relations between -the contractors and the college authorities are quite friendly. The action proposed is aimed at inducing the Board of Trustees for the Mount Cook scheme fund to remove — as is provided for in the plans—ah empty cottage.belonging to the Police Department from its present position in Buckle Street, immediately to the east of the campanile, to a, section in Tasman Street, so allowing the .opening- of a roadway (also provided on the plans and roughly constructed now) for the cartage of heavy material to the building site. The present roadway, to the west of the campanile, is '.-considerably steeper in grade, and as some blocks. v of stone may weigh up to ten tons and many thousands of tons have to be hauled up the hill, this steeper grade is no small matter. , * COLLEGE THE CHOPPING BLOCK. There is naturally some feeling that the college has been made the chopping block between the trustees and other Government ■ Departments concerned, and'this the contractors probably do not deny. However, as nothing extreme has been done and there is every indication of a satisfactory solution, the stir will shortly subside. On Tuesday a conference of the several organisations and departments concerned will be hold, in an endeavour to reach a satisfactory understanding. Such a conference is necessary for determining what legal access the Technical College is to halve, apart altogether from the present fencing .controversy, for in the serie3 of letters and communications which ' built up the negotiations of many years, fiijst between the Government and the, Technical College, and later 'between the Government, the College, and the Board of Trustees, this matter 'of legal access does not seem to have figured very prominently. "'..:.- A proposal has been mado that the college should be given a strip/ about 60 feet wide across the front of the building and down over a steep, grade to .Tasman Street. . Th|s suggestion is not received with unanimous enthusiasm^ but .no doubt as the whole block, college and board land, is administered in the public interest, a way will be found to give acceptable permanent access . Meanwhile, what the ,con,tractorii, are hoping for is an easier grade up which, to haul stone, gravel, and cement duringl the next three years. ■