HARBOUR SCHEME

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 12, 14 July 1939, Page 8

HARBOUR SCHEME

HUTT RIVER MOUTH

THE FUTURE OF GEAR ISLAND

The Town Clerk, Petone, advised the Hutt River Board yesterday that a discussion had taken place at the Petone Council meeting regarding the availability of Gear Island for sports purposes and that he had been instructed to ascertain exactly when the present leases would fall due.

The board instructed its secretary to reply giving full information regarding the.leases under which Gear Island was at present occupied.

The secretary intimated that the main lease, that held by the Shandon Golf Club, was definitely subject to a right of renewal to 1945, and he quoted the clause in the board's letter to the club which stated: "The board is also prepared to extend the lease to December, 1945."

Mr. Ward Pearce said that if the [and had been let as a dairy farm it should be producing a rental more like £3000 than the £600 it was at present producing. Mr. J. W. Andrews, while holding that a sum of £3000 was excessive, considered the board had in the past shown a jolly fine spirit when it had let the land for sports purposes instead of getting a much higher revenue from other legitimate sources. They had lived up to the spirit of the Act, which gave them power tp set the island aside for sports purposes. However, continued Mr. Andrews, if the present proposal of the Hutt Valley Development Scheme was carried out it would be practically impossible to retain the area for sports purposes. The plan of the scheme was to make the mouth of the river a harbour with wharves and all shipping facilities and it would then be impossible to prevent Gear Island being industrialised.

The proposed scheme was to reopen the closed arm of the river to the west of Gear Island and to cut a new mouth 'for the river west of the casing works through Jackson Street and in between Lever ' Bros, premises and the area on which State houses were being built and so out to sea. The eastern arm would be closed and the present mouth used as a harbour, with presumably wharves on Gear Island.

The chairman, Dr. B. J. Dudley, inquired if the information so disclosed was official, to which Mr. Andrews replied that the scheme had been given to him and that, he understood the Harbour Board was being consulted.