HUTf RIVER MQUTH

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 110, 6 November 1933, Page 8

HUTf RIVER MQUTH

RECLAMATION SCHEME

VISIT BY MINISTER <

The Minister of Public Works'(the Hon. J. Bitchener), ■ accompanied by Mr. W. Nash, M.P., for the Hutt, and the Hon. Mark Fagan, M.L.C.,- met tho chairman, Mr. IV J. Jones, and. memberk of the! Hutt Kiver Board, and Mr. J. W. Andrews, Mayor of Lower Hutt, with'-.tho borough engineer, Mr. B. F. Mainland, at the estuary of the Hutt Eiver this afternoon to discuss.a proposal^ for. the reclamation of an "area, the centre of which is>what is known as Scabey Island, with a possible view to forming an aerodrome on: thp reclaimed' ground. , The area in question is provisionallythe property of the Hutt Eivcr Board. In 1922, at the instigation,: of the then chairman of tho Eiver Board (Mr. W. T. Strand) the Hutt Eiver Eeclamation and Improvement Act was passed, giving the board the right* to reclaim approximately 174 acres on the eastern bank of the Hutt Eiver mouth, and_ 65 acres on the western,- or/Petono, side. This right was given. With the concurrence of'the Marine' Department and the Wellington Harbour Board, the latter body retaining the right to claim certain lands on the banks of the river for harbour purposes. The Act provides for the construction of half-tide concrete walls in the river channel .from the pipe bridge to the mouth, of the river, from where the walls would extend cast and west.along the sea front. Though the Eiver Board has not put in hand any large construction works owing to the times not justifying the expenditure of a considerable sum of loan money, it has materially assisted natural reclamation bytho erection of brushwood barriers, behind which windblown sand has rapidly accumulated, and if allowed- to continue this would in the course of many years carry out by natural means the reclamation of the area. ' '

In May, 1932, Mr. Strand put forward a scheme whereby the unemployed could be found work reclaiming this area. The River board secured permission from the Harbour Board to modify its scheme, the concrete walls previously stipulated not at that time being considered necessary, and it was agreed that all parties would agree to the walls being erected in. rubble, which it was proposed to secure from the hills at the extreme end of the eastern reclamation*, [fhe River Board, not being in a position to finance, the scheme, asked the Public Works Department if it would carry out the work, tho River Board agreeing to relinquish all its rights to' the reclaimed area provided the Department would hand: over to it thirty-five acres of reclaimed roaded land. The Public Works. Department did not agree to this proposition, and the negotiations were continued on the basis of tho board accepting a smaller area: ■ In December, 1932, the Public Works Department finally turned down the scheme on the ground of the cost.

In June this year the question was rovived by Mr. Strand, who induced the board to approach the Unemployment Board direct, with a proposal somewhat similar to that, wnich was. placed before the Public Works Department. Nothing has so far eventuated from these negotiations. The idea was to utilise spoil from the hills, supplemented by a dredge working in the mouth of' the river.