PORT CHALMERS AFFAIRS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20800, 20 August 1929, Page 13

PORT CHALMERS AFFAIRS.

PROGRESSIVE LEAGUE MEETING. A meeting of the Port Chalmers Progressive League was held last ■ night, the president (Mr J. Y. Love) taking the chair. The secretary (Mr R. Young) reported on what. had been done in regard to equalising local, telephone charges.—The chairman said = the matter would, be folfollowed up and they would probably get the support, of. other towns similarly situated ini - regard to subscribers paying more for calls than users of the slottelephone. The Sawyers’ Bay Progressive League wrote congratulating Mr Love on his statement at the annual meeting" in re-, gard to railway duplication and road formation. " It was decided to write to the Waikouaiti County Council, the West Harbour Council and the , Highways Board, pointing out that the league had subscribed a sum which the Otago Motor Club had subsidised for the purpose of putting metal on ..the road from Sawyers’ Bay to the Junction. The money had not been expended, although the road was badly in need of metal. It was stated that the road in question formed the boundary between Waikouaiti County and West Harbour Borough. :lt was decided to write to the; Sawyers’ Bay League urging that body to taka steps in regar dto getting a footpath from Sawyers’ Bay to Port Chalmers. At present; the lack of a path made the road dangerous for pedestrians, especially at nighttime. ' The unsatisfactory state of the Port Chalmers-Dunedin road was discussed, and the present control was described as “ hopeless.” The Mayor (Mr W. G. Love) described what steps the Borough Council had taken in an endeavour to have something, done. He understood that the Highways Board would reconstruct the road at a cost of £30,000. ■ Of that amount, the Highways Board would contribute £20,000. The balance of £IO,OOO would be paid by the three contributing local bodies over a term of perhaps 10 years. That would mean that the contributing bodies would have to pay less than they were paying at present, and they would have a road. . It was decided to appoint a deputation to wait on the Dunedin City Council as the largest contributor to the upkeep of the road, and to ask representatives from the Motor Club;- the St. Leonard’s Progressive League, and the Sawyers’ Bay Progressive League to join the deputation. In regard' to the harbour policy, the chairman said that Port Chalmers people were more interested than ever in the harbour. Speaking generally, the Harbour Board, in rejecting both motions before it, had, as a matter' of fact, declared a policy of “muddledom.” In the past,, in case of crises." the board fell back on Mr Loudon's policy. Mr Loudon succeeded in , killing _ the freezing works, and now evidently intended to kill the Port Chalmers wharves. But before that was done it should. he recognised that something would have to be put in their place. The Loudon policy seemed to be that all goods should be landed at Dunedin, whether landed direct or transhipped. Timaru was becoming a distributing centre for the South Island, and the big steamer Tamaroa was discharging cargo within a few - hundred yards of the warehouses there. Soon the bigger ships would be passing Otago Harbour. A movement should be made to obtain a commission to inquire into harbour matters from the importers’ and exporters’ point of view, and from the standpoint of the community generally. It would cost less to dredge the lower harbour than to install an inadequate export service at the Victoria wharf.