CATHEDRAL SQUARE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21148, 4 October 1930, Page 12

CATHEDRAL SQUARE.

DISPUTE AS TO STREET LINE, CHRISTCHURCH CITY COUNCIL’S APPEAL., (Ph* United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, October 8. The hearing of the appeal, the Christchurch City Council v. the Attorneygeneral, was resumed in the Court; of 1 Appeal this morning, when the court continued to examine plans and relevant statutes and ordinances. Mr O’Shea, for . the • dependant corporation, said the land in dispute became a street by virtue of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1867, and ordinances of the Canterbury Provincial Council in 1858, 1850, and IS6<l. The Cathedral square ordinance, passed by the Provincial Council in 1872, did not affect any land which had become a street under the Municipal Corporations Act, 1807. Section 4 of that ordinance gave the superintendent of the province power to close the highway then existing over portion of the land in dispute, but he did not do so, and the land has maintained the character of a highway down to the present time. * Except for the portion of the square now enclosed by a fence, the whole square was a street. That portion was fenced off in 1878, and bad remained like that ever since. The statutes did not describe the Godley block by metes and bounds, but the area had to be ascertained from local know- - ledge. The erection of the fence arouud the-block in 1878 constituted a definition of the area by the council. The Municipal Corporations Act, 1878, defined streets as “ including public squares.” Subsequent Acts of 1880 and 15)00 also adopted this view. The effect of the 1878 Act, then, was to make the street the whole of the western portion of the square, excepting that portion enclosed in the Godley block. The Cathedral Square Act of 1883 did not affect the .position, as it dealt primarily with the eastern side of the square. At this stage the court adjourned till Monday.