ELECTRIC LIGHT WORKS SITE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 11 April 1922, Page 5

ELECTRIC LIGHT WORKS SITE

(To the Editor)

Sir,—There appears to be a good deal of misapprehension regarding the matter of the site of the proposed electrical light works at the Port, which perhaps the facts of the ease will remove. The tacts are those; At the meeting of the Harbour Board in the beginning of March, a deputation from tllp City Council waited on the Board to ask for a site at the old baths, selected by Mr Toogood (see Ids report). The to was 1 no objection to The site, and the chairman told the deputation so, but that before a lease could be granted the Council must produce a plan showing what amount of ground was required. The chairman further said that as soon as.this was done lie would, to save delay, call a special meeting of the Board to grant a lease and forward it on to the Ala line Department for their sanction. The Board heard nothing further whatever for a month, Until their April meeting, when plans were put in for another site altogether, opposite the junction of Victoria road! with. Wakefield Quay, upwards of a quarter of a mile from the site previously asked for. This, from the Board’s view, was a, most objectionable site, as it placed the ivories in and to. windward of the residential part of the Port, besides making the junction of Victoria road—already the most'dangerous one in the city—-still more'so. The Board at its meeting on Wednesday last' adjourned it till Friday to enable a deputation from the Council to go into tin; question of a site with the Board. This was done, and a site about equally suitable for the Council and unobjectionable to the Board, was found and the probability is that there will be no more trouble. Had the Council notified to the Board in any .way their proposed change of site they would have found that it could not bo granted, and thus saved the delay and expense of malting plans for the wrong site.

It .is verv natural that.tliose owning homes m the residential part of the Port should strongly object to the site opposite Victoria road. It has taken years of hard' work and saving ■to-pur-chase and make their homes comfortable find improve them year after year, when they could save a little money for the purpose. Thoy. made their homes there for the pure air and quiet, and there is a sentimental value as well as an £s. d. one. Ido not think there is any ■ >■> fear of the members of Harbour Board losing their'sense of justice sufficiently to grant a right to establish a nuisance to damage these hard-earned homes, nor do I think that the City Councillors would urge it now they have seen it would be a great injustice 1 am, etc., : H. P. WASHJJOPRN, Port Nelson, April 10, 1922. '