RABBIT ISLAND

Manawatu Times, Volume LII, Issue 3614, 15 September 1927, Page 3

RABBIT ISLAND

QUESTION OE OWNERSHIP. CROWN TO MAKE SURVEY. Further correspondence was dealt with at yesterday’s meeting of the Oroua County Council respecting the ownership and the right of occupancy of Rabbit Island in the Manawatu River adjacent to Ashhurst. It will bo recalled that at the last meeting of the Council two ratepayers, Messrs. Aitken and Woods waited on the Council to urge the protection of their interests in rclaton to the grazing rights of the island which in the summer months, is joined to Mr. Aitken's property, the Council resolved to place the position before the Land Board and request that the island be vested in th e Council. The correspondence dealj. with at yesterday’s meeting of the Council revealed that ther e are now several claims for the island which forms part of the Moutere Native Reserve and different areas of this reserve are hold under license from native owners by certain settlers. The Districts Lands office intimated that nothing could bo done with respect to vesting the island in the Council until a survey of the Crown area had been made. Instructions had been issued for the survey to be undertaken at an early date. Mr J. Gordon Eliott, M.P., whose assistance had boon invoked in the matter, wrote that he had been assured that nothing would be done without the Council being first consulted.

Another letter was received from iVtr. A. Stuart (member of the Wellington Land Board) advising that the Board had decided on a survey being made and expressing the opinion that the probabilities were that the control of the island would bo vosted in the Council.

The chairman (Councillor A Campbell) expressed himself as being satisfied, from the tenor of the correspondence, that the Council’s interests were being fully protected.

The question of meeting the surveyors and conveying them to the island was left in the hands of the County Engineer.