COMMON ACTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 128, 26 November 1941, Page 6

COMMON ACTION

E.P.S. AND BRIGADES

THE PETONE FIRE

Replies were made today by Mr. E. P. Hay, chairman of the Lower Hutt City E.P.S., and Mr. James Kerr, chairman of the Petone Fire Board, to criticism of lack of cooperation by Valley authorities with the city in plans for common action in emergency.

The question arose from a discussion at the meeting of the central executive of the Wellington E.P.S. on the reading of a letter from the Town Clerk of Lower Hutt City, stating that though the Lower Hutt E.P.S. would act under the general metropolitan! scheme of emergency warnings during i black-out trials, it would act at its j discretion in actual emergency. The failure of the Petone fire authorities to call upon the city brigade when a serious fire destroyed a Petone factory, with a loss of £80,000, was cited by Mr. S. S. Dean, chairman of the Wellington Fire Board, as an instance of. lack of co-operation. The chairman of the Lower Hutt E.P.S..said it was quite true that Lower Hutt has declined1 to agree to the suggestion that its powers as regards emergency warnings ■- should be delegated to the Wellington organisation, but the assumption on the part of one of the speakers at the Wellington meeting that this attitude on the part of Lower Hutt implied a lack of cooperation, with the other organisations in the metropolitan area was a hasty and unwarranted one. THE RECENT TRIAL. t There was complete co-operation ! in the recent black-out, trial; and. so far as Lower Hutt was concerned j the policy of co-ordination of effort would be continued in every direction where it could profitably be employed, said Mr. Hay. It was considered, however, that in a real emergency the circumstances might vary greatly as between the city and the Hutt Valley. Conditions which necessitated the calling out of the E.P.S. organisation in Wellington might not prevail in the Valley.'or might arise at a different time., In these circumstances it was difficult to see what useful result was to be achieved by establishing a system of uniformity hi the issue of warning signals. It might only lead to unnecessary confusion. Each organisation was a self-con-tained unit, operating within its own territory, and having the responsibility of deciding when'and to what extent its powers were to be applied, said Mr. Hay. If an emergency arose affecting the whole metropolitan area, there was no reason to suppose that any one organisation would act otherwise than in harmony with the others. ; Lower Hutt would certainly not be found wanting in that respect. The general object that everyone had in view was not assisted by ill-considered criticism of the type expressed at the recent Wellington meeting.