TIPUA DOMAIN

Northern Advocate, 16 December 1925, Page 7

TIPUA DOMAIN

KAMO SETTLERS' CLAIM. Messrs F. Wakelin and P. Gardner, representing the Kamo Town Board, waited upon the 'Whangarei Hospital Board on Monday, as lessees of the Tipua Domain from the Whangarei County Council, asking 1 the board to forego the lease. Mr Wakelin said that some 40 years ago, when Kamo was subdivided, the Tipua section, adjoining the Kamo Springs property, was set aside as a recreation ground, which vas vested in the County Council as trustees. Some six years ago Mr S. C. .Tounncaux and he had approached the County Council with a view to getting control of the area on behalf of the Kamo Town Board, but their request was turned down. The Town Board had overlooked the matter at the time when the Council had renewed the iease. Consequently they had been deputed to ask if the Hospital Board would forego its lease and have the reserve vested in the Kamo Town Board. Nothing was being done with the area at present, and the Town Board might be able to do something with it, even by way of disposing of it and with the proceeds acquiring a more suitable area for a recreation area- in the township. The chairman, Mr T. Ellis, said that there was a certain amount of money which lay with the County Council and it, was intended to spend a good part of it upon improvements to the land. It could not be put to any other purpose. Mr Ellis had no objection to the Kamo Town Board having control and then selling the area to form a nucleus of a fund to buy five acres of more suitable land near the tennis courts as a reserve for Kamo. Mr J. A. S. Mackay warned the board that it might forego its lease and then find that the County Council could not go ahead. In reply to Mr J. N. McCarroll, Mr Wakelin -.-said that the Kamo Town Board's main object was to sell the Tipua Domain and purchase another area. The Kamo Tqwti Board, he considered had the best claim to the domain. The chairman stated that the Minister of Crown Lands had advised him that the domain could be sold, subject to the County Council approving it and the Hospital Board surrendering its lease. The area was, however, the main outlet for the drainage from the board's land. He thought that if the Kamo Town Board got control of the domain it would give the Hospital Board first option to purchase or lease it. Mr J. N. I. McKay thought it would be a pity to do anything to prevent the people of Kamo from putting the land either directly or-indirectly to the use for which it was originally intended. He moved'that the Hospital Board agree to surrender the lease of the 'area provided that it was given first option to purchase it. Mr J. A. S. Mackay contended that there was an opportunity of safeguarding the Hospital Board's drainage rights, and that was made an extra condition in the resolution which was recorded.