THE OAMARU CLOCK TOWER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26027, 15 December 1945, Page 6

THE OAMARU CLOCK TOWER

The Government seems to have impaled itself on the horns of a dilemma through having secured a second report on the subject of the stability of the clock tower in the Post Office building in Oamaru. It is now in possession of two reports that are in direct conflict one with the other. Engineers of the Works Department have declared that the tower is unsafe against earthquake stress and that it should be removed as a safeguard of human life and property. The decision that the policy of demolition of post office towers should be applied to that in Oamaru as well as to more than a score of others throughout the Dominion, which are held to be liable to be destroyed by earthquake, was stayed, in response to urgent representations from the Oamaru people, in order that an independent report might be received from a private consulting engineer, who is said to have been suggested by the Minister of the department concerned. And the opinion expressed in this independent report is that the clock tower in Oamaru, “as it stands, would come safely and uninjured through a fairly heavy earthquake shock” and that it could be made, by reinforcement, as strong as many buildings are that have been designed in accordance with the standard by-law relating to a building of the size. Here, then, are two contrary reports, each by an authority whose judgment is entitled to respect. Apparently it will rest with the Minister of Works to decide whether the clock tower shall come down or remain as it is. It would be an act of wisdom on his part, before he forms his decision, to take the advice of the department’s engineers whether the adoption of the plan of strengthening the tower, as recommended by the consulting engineer, would have the effect, in their opinion, of eliminating the earthquake risk —not, it is to be concluded, a very grave risk, though not a risk that is to be wholly ignored. The people of Oamaru entertain a sentimental attachment to the tower and to the clock and its chimes, which were presented to the town as far back as the early years of the present century, and were at that time vested in the Borough Council. Moreover, the tower and the clock form such an attractive feature of the landscape that the demolition of them, for reasons of which the validity was questionable, would create a sense of injustice and produce a feeling of resentment in the public mind.