PREEMAN'S BAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 721, 7 March 1866, Page 4

PREEMAN'S BAY.

A few days since ivc announced that the services of a professional engineer had been engaged for the purpose of surveying Freeman's Bay, and preparing plans and estimates of certain proposed works, which it was intended should be placed before the Provincial Government for approval and adoption. The plans are, we believe, now prepared, and will, if adopted by the Government, give to the Western side of the city and large suburbs skirting Freeman's Bay, and the country beyond it, the much needed wharfage accommodation, the want of which has been so grievously felt and complained of during the late Superintendence, and the repeated applications for which, made to the Government by the inhabitants from time to time, were utterly iguored. I

The surveys and plan have Tieen made and prepared by one of the firm of Dalton Brothers, the English firm of engineers lately arrived in tho Colony, and will, we believe, bo submitted to the City Board, and by that

publio body to the Superintendent who Lag expressed his willingness to adopt any practicable and reasonable plan which may be suggested to him for affording wharfage accommodation to the Western side of Auckland. and the very large population living oil the other side of Franklyn-street. One valuable feature in the plan now proposed, 13, that the work will be reproductive, and therefore the difficulty of finding tli e mono v in these days of empty treasuries will be no Hindrance to'the immediate undertaking of it. The ••>(•.aey can, by permission of the Assembly, be raised by loan on the harbour endowments were ten times as much required, and all that the Superintendent need care for is that the work to be undertaken is a right and proper one, and that there is security from the undertaking of it to meet the intei'est and sinking fund ot the loan to be raised. As we said before, the work would be a reproductive one, and we will explain how. The plau, as proppsed, is to construct a sea-wall from the Western horn of the bay in a direct line to Drake-street, meeting that street at a point opposite the line of thp Eastern side of Franklyn-street;, and forming, in fact, the Eastern side of the continuation of that street which it is proposed to extend through the saddle in the Western boundary of the bay, formed by the lbssc of the old Maori pali at the extreme point. Provision is made lor the drainage at present discharged near the saw-pits by the construction of a sewer into open water. Drake-street is to be straightened and a sea-wall built along it from Franklyn-street to the Eastern side of the Bay until it reaches a point at or about- the present bridge. From thence a sea wall is to be -carried out to the other extremity of the Bay. Roads also are to be constructed from Drake-street parallel with the land on cither side of the Bay, and which can easily be formed from the soil to be obtained from the high ground adjoining. These three roads 1o be thus formed, besides affording a large extent of wharf accommodation, will in all give some 4700 feet of frontage, the lease of which will more than yield a sum sufficient to defray the interest and sinking fund of the loan requisite to carry out the work. Wo believe that the work itself will not cost- more than £SOOO, and we have heard that one capitalist has already declared his willingness to take tlie whole of the reclaimed lots 011 lease at a rent of £2,100 per annum. The work would thus seem to lie something more than barely reproductive.

But had it been barely so, it would, we maintain, have been the duty of the local Government to have undertaken it, or something of the kind ; for it is utterly impossible that the requirements of Freeman's Bay, in the matter of wharfage accommodation, can be any longer ignored; nor, indeed, is the present Mipei'iiitendent the man wilfully to do so. The want of this accommodation has bcien a crying and a grievous evil, which, hardly as the" Western side of the city has been accustomed to be treated, it was no longer content patiently to bear. Since writing the above, we have learned that the intended improvements are to he still further advanced by the carrying of the road proposed to bo formed to the Eastern extreme point of the bay, round that point, and along the beach, past the foot of JSTelsou and Hobson-stree* s to the foot of Albert-street, where it will join into Custom-house-street, and that two owners of property, improved thereby, yesterday afternoon, gave their named for subscriptions of £100 each, toward^.the undertaking. It is confidently expected that a large -sum towards the cost of the construction of Custom-house-street to freeman's Bay, may thus be raised by private subscription, and the balance be made up by the authorities.