HATAITAI CAMP

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 66, 15 September 1943, Page 6

HATAITAI CAMP

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

WHAT THE MEN ARE DOING

The pistol was beaten—through misunderstanding and not by intent— when the defence works camp at Hataitai Park was put under way without formal approval by the City Council, but the future possibilities of the camp are such that it should turn out very well for Wellington City. In many parts of the Dominion defence works camps have been established for military and coastal defence construction; in Wellington two other factors have made emergency camps necessary: the ■ earthquakes last year and the appalling housing shortage here. War construction needs may

soon tail off in and about the city area; earthquake reconstruction still has a long way to go, but the most urgent work is petering out; housing construction has yet to begin on the scale that will- be essential if the disastrous leeway of 10,000 houses and dwelling units (in flats 5r multiple dwelling units) is to be made up this side of many years. , With the greatest concentration of. effort that can be applied, the housing shortage still cannot be overhauled for some years, which will mean that the defence works camps will be occupied as such for some time, and» coincidentally with housing will run reconstruction, repair, and-overdue maintenance of many undertakings, business, and residential premises, which have slid back because of shortage of labour and materials during war years. But when 'eventually the Hataitai camp becomes available for other purposes it can be a really fine city asset. . Because of the type of the main buildings, the lay-out and equipment, it may be easily changed over to a camp for convalescents returned from overseas service, or a children's summer camp, or a motor camp right on the ■ city's doorstep, but yet removed from city surroundings. NOT ON PLAYING AREA.

The camp, to accommodate 250 men. is being built on the slope to the south of the levelled part of the park and does not encroach in any degree upon the levelled playing area. The permanent buildings, on concrete foundations and in first-class > wooden construction which should be good for 30 or 40 years if properly maintained, are a large mess hall, with kitchen, food stores, etc., a large recreation hall, an ablution block, with hot and cold showers, basins, laundry, etc.; there are lesser permanent buildings. Spaced among the trees on the slopes will be two-men huts, and on three terraces levelled in front of the main buildings will be a block of two- and three-men huts. The site is excellently drained and should be healthy. There is a really fine outlook, over Evans Bay and up the Hataitai Valley. WILL REPLACE FOUR CAMPS.

1 There are several defence work 1 camps outside Wellington,' but as far • as the city itself is concerned there have been four,"which were rushed up when Wellington was hit by the earthquakes and when it became im- ■■". perative to bring a large number of '■ tradesmen in from outside. These rush camps were set up at Eongotai, Wakefield: Park, the Basin Reserve, and.in thei building arid grounds of the Newtown Kindergarten. As strictly emergency camps they served: their purpose in providing accommodation for men for whom there was no room elsewhere, but they have not been by any means ideal camps. Four camps meant unduly heavy catering expense, and though the Rongotai camp did not interfere with public areas, the two on the city reserves interfered seriously with their facilities,-particularly at the Basin Reserve. The kindergarten camp has. been more than seriously inconvenienced.

THE KINDERGARTEN CAMP.

The" Newtown Free Kindergarten building is off Hospital Road. The building was the model kindergarten at the exhibition and was never actually used for its proper purpose, for when it was shifted, after some delay, from the exhibition grounds to Hospital Road it was taken over as the mess ■hall and kitchen for the emergency workers' camp. Nothing but the emergency which was created by the earthquakes would have led to the forbidding of the . building to infants whose mothers are in many cases working and are away from home all day, and, besides that, the lower part of the. grounds, where, the huts are f>laced, turned out to be an unfprunate winter camp site, for there was not time to lay down adequate surface water drainage. However, the camp has served its purely emergency purpose, and the closing date is fairly near; drainage work in ' the lower ground will take some time, but the kindergarten should be a going concern within a few months at most.

So also the Basin Reserve camp could only be justified as needed to meet an emergency. It is dry and healthy and the pavilion kitchen and meeting roams'have made successful enough mess halls, kitchen, etc., but bathing and washing arrangements have been crude; there have been no proper facilities for drying clothes- or washing clothes,'and by general agreement the lines of huts in front of the pavilion of Wellington's best playing field are an eyesore.

As soon as the Hataitai camp can be opened, in from six weeks to two .months, these rush camps will be closed, with benefit to the men, the reserves, and the kindergarten, and with greater economy of management.

The" camp arrangements at Hataitai and also in the similar camps about Wellington (Randwick Road, Naenae Lane, and Porirua) are good, but are not over-elaborate. The meals are very good. The several hundred men in these camps, the majority of .whom are middle-aged men directed to Wellington, leaving their wives and families in their home towns, are doing a war jol>—as witness the speed with which military camps, defence stores, and other works in many locations, the progress of rebuilding of earthquakeshaken buildings, and the agreement among lall parties that, in Wellington particularly, housing is an immediate .major problem, which will become still more acute when, men return from service overseas.