SUBURBS OR CITY

Evening Post, Issue 20, 23 July 1935, Page 3

SUBURBS OR CITY

COST OF DISTRICT BATHS

KARORI AND NGAIO

Though the question of how the £14,000 received by the City Council as compensation for the taking of the Thorndon Esplanade is to be allocated has again'retired to Ihe official quietude of the committee stage, the public interest has by no means died down, and from what can be gathered it is probable that the original proposals of the reserves committee may be considerably amended before the council will give its approval to the spending of the money.

The committee's original recommendations, with all of which the council did not agree and so sent them back for further consideration, were that of the £14,000, £4800 should be spent in completing the Karori baths (making a total expenditure of £7000 or more on this district bath), and £2840 on baths at Ngaio, and that the greater part of the balance, with the exception of £1000 for the improvement of the filtration and pumping plant at the Thorndon baths, should be divided among a number of small and smallish jobs at suburban beaches. The committee recommended that no action should be taken towards the provision of accommodation at Oriental Bay. OPINION MUCH DIVIDED. It was made clear during the council discussion that severs! of these smaller works, of which some were reconditioning, painting, etc., would not be agreed to, but as regards the big issues, of the expenditure upon the; two fresh water district baths (Karori and Ngaio) and the provision of dressing accommodation at Oriental Bay—a need which every speaker admitted —the council did not approach a decision. It sent the recommendations back to the committee, and, it seems i'.ikely enough, the committee will bring down very similar recommendations again, in which case the council debate will have to go to a finish. The reserve committee itself is divided as to some of the items in the schedule, and other councillors have indicated definitely their disagreement with a schedule which placed the suburban expenditure far ahead and the city's claims for a share of the £14,000 windfall just about nowhere. Of the beach and bathing facility requirements in proximity to the city, accommodation at Oriental Bay takes an easy first place, and the argument is being advanced that as the taking of the Thorndon Esplanade meant the loss of a city recreational area, the city should receive something substantial in return, and that provision should first be made for improvement at Oriental Bay, after suitable allowance has been made for the Karori and Ngaio baths. HEAVY BATHS EXPENDITURE. The council is committed to these two district bath proposals, but councillors are not in agreement as to what should be spent in their making. Not all residents of Karori, for that matter, are convinced that so large an expenditure as £7000 should be made to serve one district, even if it is a large district, while real needs of other parts of the city are not met. The report made during the last hour or so before the last council meeting by the City Engineer and Director of Parks and Reserves that the spending of £2800 on the proposed Ngaio bath site woulfl not give a satisfactory swimming bath was rather a district tragedy to Ngaio enthusiasts, but others fully agree with the Mayor that it would be folly to spend anything at all until the investigations are completed. It seems that either the Ngaio baths must go to 'some other site offering more suitable foundations, or that Ngaio must receive a considerably larger slice of the £14,000, which will mean that -the whole schedule will be .upset. Expenditure at Karori cannot bo much reduced unless the plans are considerably amended, and, apart from the high first cost, these baths will be expensive to keep in commission as there is no stream supply and main water must be used (and paid for) for weekly or fortnightly fillings, and pumping and chemical costs met for the daily filtration and chlorination of the water. This water cost, which is quite a big thing in the course of a season, will not have to be met at Ngaio, as there there will be available a stream supply, as at Khandallah. If a substantially greater expenditure will be required at Ngaio the suburban items will account for a still larger share of the £14,000, leaving practically nothing, even though some of the smaller proposed works are struck out, for the city area. There is still the bare possibility that the reserves committee may be able to persuade the council to so repent of its "borrowing" of £6000 of the Thorndon Esplanade compensation money for street widening that it will pay the money back, but local authority repentance seldom becomes so acute that money spent is cheerfully repaid. There is another possibility, far more hopeful than the return of the lamented £6000, and that is that the council may be able to apply some part of the subsidy which the Unemployment Board may grant upon the recently approved city works loan and the library loan (as reported yesterday) for the rounding off of the schedule brought down by the reserves committee, and which has since been badly upset by the obvious disinclination of the majority of councillors to agree to a good many of its items.