BY-LAW UPHELD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17955, 6 December 1932, Page 9

BY-LAW UPHELD

USE OF GRASS PLOTS HORSE TRAFFIC BARRED (Per Press Association.) PALMERSTON N-, this day. A reserved judgment of considerable interest to local authorities, was given by My. J. L. Stout, S.M., in a test case in which the validity of a. by-law was questioned. The case was one in which Mrs. Doris Martin, a resident of Palmerston North, was charged with riding a horse upon a prepared and cultivated grass plot situated in Church street, contrary to a Cfty Council by-law. In recent years the City Council has constructed grass plpts between the footways and the edging of the bitumen roadway The defendant admitted the offence of riding a horse but raised, as an excuse, that she could not ride a horse with safety on a bituminised surface. Other evidence was called to suggest that the laying out of such strips was unreasonable interference with the public rights. The magistrate held that the evidence was not convincing. If the council had power to lay out such grass plots, no doubt it could pass a. by-law to protect them. Such power existed under the Municipal Corps Act, section 354, subsections 6 and 18, and also section 172, sub-sections f and k.

“If a council can enclose and plant, s,uch power should cover the lesser right to lay without enclosing,” said (lie magistrate. In His opinion the by-law was not unreasonable.

_ “The defendant has shown very poor citizenship in deliberately damaging cultivated grass plots,” lie added. The defendant was fined £2, the pen ally being increased tp permit of an appeal on a point of law.