FULLEST INQUIRY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 140, 10 December 1935, Page 10

FULLEST INQUIRY

COUNCILLOR'S OPINION

"DISMISSED WITH AIRY

WORDS"

will be lost and that playing areas will be seriously reduced.

NO DETAILED INQUIRY MADE.

"Taking all these matters into consideration, the heavy expense, the loss of sports area and bathing beach, and Ihe fact that Kilbirnie South, Lyall Bay, and Miramar are fully developed as residential areas, I have definitely made up my mind that Rongotai is not a suitable place for a commercial aerodrome, if another area can be found," said Mr. Butler. "Such an area is, on the face evidence, to be found at the mouth of the Hutt River.

The possibilities there have not received the consideration which should have been given them. They have been mentioned in the most general manner at the City Council table, and have been dismissed in a few airy words. Nothing has been put before the City Council or the public to indicate that Gear Island and Scabey Island were given more than a casual look-over and were condemned out of hand. However, the position now has to. be taken seriously, for an expenditure of £128,000 will not be accepted by the people of Wellington until they are quite sure that that is the best means of providing ah aerodrome.

"In any case," concluded Mr. Butler, "the decision really will rest with the Government, for the City Council proposes to ask the Government for substantial assistance, and I cannot conceive of any Government agreeing to hand to any City Council £20,000 to £50,000 —whatever it may be—until it is assured that the Rongotai scheme has been inquired into, not merely as a scheme by itself, but in comparison with alternatives which appear at least as sound and much less costly. No Government is likely to make any grant of tens of thousands of pounds until an impartial investigation has removed doubts, one way or the other."