BOOSTING NORTH SHORE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 139, 2 September 1927, Page 8

BOOSTING NORTH SHORE

Sir,— In « HE SUN of September 1, Mr. A. Simpson, of Narrow Neck, takes me to task for asserting that the North Shore had developed a spirit of civic pride that was finding expression in many avenues and making the Shore a more attractive place. There is no reason why there should not be a beach beautifying association and Caroline Bay is quite a good example to follow; the idea is not new, but will nevertheless stand pressing. Mr. Simpson confuses Narrow Neck with till the North Shore, a pardonable, but quite a wrong assumption, and his admission that he has been twelve months residing there explains why he does not know some things. Twelve months is, of course, 365 days, or 8,760 hours, and in all that procession of hours Mr. Simpson may have hoped to find some expression of civic pride. If he had looked across the Vauxhall Reserve he would have noticed that an energetic group has laid down four tennis courts without calling on the rates; beyond the courts is the Takapuna Jockey Club’s grounds, the result of 45 years’ efforts in which mangrove swamp, similar to that existing beyond the gasworks, has been converted into an attractive area. Narrow Neck Road has itself been vastly improved in the last two years; because of a feeling - of civic pride. The handsome main approach to Cheltenham Beach was made by a working bee, and the pontoons used by swimmers at Cheltenham are due to the efforts of many citizens; at Stanley Bay a park is being constructed by co-operative and individual efforts; at North Devonport the residents have recently completed comfortable bathing shed accommodation; at Bayswater a vigorous movement has provided a boating house and raised £7,000 in three years and is now busy at work, despite prevailing wind and clay, in making the suburb a place of beauty; a beautifying movement has been set on foot in central Takapuna; and Milford has made the

Kitchener Park and has other schemes in hand; at Northcote improvement work is being carried out and at Birkenhead the new Municipal Park (by the Borough Chambers), the Kay Memorial Park and the Kauri Park, are places to be proud of. At Brown’s Bay an association has essayed to better the bay and 300 houses now exist where, but a few years since, there were only half-a-dozen. I am very willing to help launch a beach beautifying association at Devonport, as any such movement would but add to the good work being done in other directions by other bodies. T. WALSH. Devonport.