TIME TO CLEAN UP

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 48, 25 August 1939, Page 5

TIME TO CLEAN UP

LYALL BAY AREA

UNTIDY FORESHORE

Lyall Bay is the Exhibition centre, though Rongotai is always spoken of as the site. Lyall Bay can do with a thorough clean-up this side of November, for its own good and for the benefit of visitors. It would be unkind to make comparisons between the foreshore there and seafronts elsewhere, in Wellington and at other centres, but it could be done, in detail, and not favourably to Lyall Bay.

In short, the Parade, on either side of Onepu Road is downright untidy, and the splendid wide roadway and footpath to the east shows up the lack of finish and time-worn paint in greater contrast than before the work was done.

At the corner of Onepu Road is a broken down shack that is a disgrace to the district. At one time it was an ice-cream and soft drinks stall; now it is nobody's business, and as the general rule is that stands and stalls are not to be set up near the Exhibition it may not be reopened. If that is a stopper, a relaxation of the rule would be a kindness to the people of Lyall Bay, unless there is some other way of having the shack pulled down.

The seawall, built six or seven years ago, is not finished. The broad-topped pillars were designed to carry ornamental light standards; but the lights are not there and the pillar heads have been left in the extremely rough all that time.

The beach presumably will be given a spring. overhaul, and can do with it. At present there is an unusual accumulation of shingle and the beach is none too safe for bathing, but these changes in sand to shingle and in the slope below tide level come and go; nothing much can be done about that. BEACH BUILDINGS IN BAD SHAPE. The bathing sheds are below even the general level of untidiness and neglect. They are so far gone and I unsatisfactory that patching is not of much use, though a drop of paint would do good.

Councillor W. Duncan, chairman of the reserves committee, said that the committee and the council- are uncomfortably aware that the beach buildings are unsatisfactory, but the committee simply had not funds for any considerable improvement, nor would he favour anything more than the minimum necessary to improve them for the coming summer.

Sooner or later the present buildings would have to go altogether, and be replaced by a properly designed pavilion which would give the facilities needed by the public and by the life-saving clubs.

The older sheds, he said, were built about 25 years ago, and then of sec-ond-rate material. They had no drainage and were hopelessly out of date in design. Wood was not a suitable material, for the upkeep and painting ran away with far more money than would be required for a pavilion in concrete. That had been said, of course, for years. Proposal after proposal had baen put forward, but either loan items had been turned down or money had gone elsewhere. Now the Lyall Bay Surf Club had offered £400 and assistance in labour if the council would find £450 for a new club building, but the offer could not be accepted, though it had been suggested that material which would be available after the Exhibition would go a long way to simplifying the rebuilding problem.

The sheds and shacks at Island Bay were even worse, said Councillor Duncan.

"Don't be surprised if you find them gone some fine morning, out to sea with a strong spring tide. I doubt whether anything effective can be done there. Some of the walls would collapse under a paint brush. They are going to be a poor advertisement for Wellington during the Exhibition. But we have no money for them."