WILL BE REPLACED

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 52, 29 August 1940, Page 12

WILL BE REPLACED

READY FOR TROOPS

TIMBER AND IRON AVAILABLE

"The contractors will soon rattle another one up," said the Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department (Mr. J. Wood), when asked to comment today on the destruction of the Waiouru messroom. Mr. Wood said that the building was practically completed by the contractors, the Fletcher Construction Company, Ltd., and the cost was approximately £7000. The building'was a large wooden one built to accommodate a battalion of 700 or 800 men at meals. The kitchen was in the centre, but fortunately the kitchen equipment had not been installed. Apart from that, the building was practically ready for use. When the workmen left the building on Monday night everything was in order. The fire evidently broke out late at night. Mr. Wood said that the three contracting firms at the camp were employing 600 men and there were 400 Public Works men carrying out the sewerage, water supply, and drainage installations. The building destroyed had been erected in about three weeks, and as the contractors had to have everything ready by the end of September for the beginning of the training of Territorials in October, there was ample time to replace it. The destroyed building was insured by the contractors. The most serious loss from a replacement point of view was the .galvanised roofing iron, the value ,of which was somewhere in the vicinity of £1000. However, iron would be procured for the new building and he saw no difficulty about the supply of timber for the job.