RONGOTAI AIRPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1941, Page 13

RONGOTAI AIRPORT

FUTURE EXPANSION

AN URGENT QUESTION

CHAMBER ACTIVE

The future of the Rongotai airport was discussed by the Wel« lington Chamber of Commerce last evening, when the Air Services Committee was authorised to take up with the authorities the question of acquiring the land necessary to develop the aerodrome. Mr. A. R. Hislop, who raised the subject, recalled that Captain Holm [had recommended at the December meeting of the chamber that the Government be asked to place a proclamation upon the land required for the Rongotai aerodrome. He had no desire, he said, to embarrass the Government, nor did he wish to force forward a matter which might have to wait until after the war; nevertheless he considered that the chamber should keep in view this question, which was urgent, in the adequate deI velopment of Wellington itself.

The president, Mr. R. H. Nimmo, said he had approached the Prime Minister,, who was reluctant to exercise a proclamation because of the : necessity of sweeping away a number of houses when the airport extension scheme was carried out, and thus making the housing situation even more acute than now. The speaker contended, however, that the Government could at any time take by proclamation the land required, in order to ensure that it should be available when desired—even if it be ten years hence. "I believe," he said, "that a decision should be made quickly on this matter and that it should be followed by quick action."

Other speakers stressed the advantages of Rongotai as the leading airport of New Zealand—if not in the Southern Hemisphere—and Mr. '• A.Leslie Wall urged members not to lose sight of the potentialities of the head of Evans Bay as a seaplane base.

The Air Services Committee of the chamber was authorised to go further into the question and, if considered desirable, to make the necessary approach to the authorities.