FITZROY SEASIDE PARK

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1929, Page 14

FITZROY SEASIDE PARK

SCHEME TO MERGE INTO BOROUGH HARBOUR BOARD DISCUSSION. “This opens up a very wide question and we will have to go into the position most carefully,” said Mr. C. EJ. Bellringer, chairman of the Nw Plymouth Harbour Board, when informing a deputation from the Borough Council yesterday that it would be advised later of the board’s decision on a proposal to merge into the borough section 97 of the board’s land, otherwise known as the Fitzroy Seaside Park. In bringing the question again before the board" the council was keeping faith with its promise, said the Mayor (Mr. H. V. S. Griffiths). The council intended to take steps to bring section 97 and the adjoining section into the borough, the natural boundary of which was the Waiwakaiho River. It was, in fact, inconceivable why the sections were ever left out of the borough, for their whole interests lay in that direction, and he considered the time was long past when they should have been brought in. The deputation was there to ask on what terms the board would be prepared to dispose of the land to the borough. The council w r ould go into the question of cost and would be prepared to take over the section altogether if the terms were satisfactory. It was the desire of tnc council to have control of the waterfront from the abbatoir reserve, on the eastern side of the board’s section, to t' Henui River.

While thanking the board for granting the Fitzroy Seaside Park Society the use of the land to form a park, Mr. P. E. Stainton, of the Borough Council, pointed out that without security of tenure the society could not go forward with the sa e‘improvement policy as it otherwise would. In such a. thickly populated area as Fitzroy it was very desirable to have such a park. If the land were merged in the borough the people of Fitzroy would energetically prosecute a comprehensive scheme on' definite town planning lines; they would prohibit the erection of shacks and would maki a park that would be an asset to the suburb, the town and the province. There were a good many points about the proposal for the board to consider, said Mr. E. Maxwell. The board’s reserves were pledged as security, for loans, and it was a question whether they could be sold under the circumstances. Hitherto the idea had been that the board should not dispossess itself .of its endowments, but, of course, anything could be done by Act of Parliament.