The Hutt News THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1930. NO AERODROME.

Hutt News, Volume 3, Issue 21, 16 October 1930, Page 7

The Hutt News THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1930. NO AERODROME.

It is difficult, if not altogether

impossible, for the ordinary man to understand the attitude taken • up J)y members of the Hutt River Board toward the proposition to; establish within the borough an aerodrome. The determined and essentially hostile aspect with wtiich the Board has regarded the project of the Wellington Aero Ohib to obtain a lease, upon reasonable, and to the Board, advantageous terms has finally been met, as will be seen by the report of the meeting publis/led in this issue, by what is equivalent to a contemptuous refusal. The imposition of conditions which the Board must have known were impossible of fulfilment meant gust that and nothing more, and of oourse, for the present, and possibly for the life of the present Board, the project must necessarily be dropped. The vague talk of future possibilities, and the layman's engineering knowlelge (*?). of the possibilities and probabilities of damage to the property administered by the Board is futile. The members, as private citizensl, have a perfect right to whatever opinions they may choose to hold on the subject of flying and air "transport, but as officials elected to conserve the interests of the residents ot the Hutt district, we sumnit that they are allowing their private prejudices to interfere with their obvious duty toward their constituents. The' members are not asked —at all events by those.who. elected them —to fly personally- In. fact they were elected to stay—not to fly. But those who elected them must surely have expected them to use common sense and not to be blinded by an absurd idea that they would be able, by placing obstacles in the way, to stop the, march of progress in aviation. ■ Nearly every local authority in j the Dominion is doing its utmost I to encourage aviation in its disI trict, but it is reserved for the I River Board of the Hutt to flaunt I amidst the derision of all up-to-I date people, a banner bearing the I slogan "We are Opposed to Pro--I gress"; "No Aviation nor Avia- ) I tors for the Hutt." Let any unI prejudiced person inspect Scaby I Island, any engineer or layman I can readily get an idea .of the I present and prospective value of ■ the site, of its prospects for the I next fifty years of being of the I slightest use for any other purBpose than that for which it is now ■sought: Let them contemplate Bthe stupendous cost of reclamaKion, and consider from whence ■this huge sum is to be obtained, ■and when. Meanwhile the River' ■Boad electors have something to Bponder over between now and the Kext election. {