REPLANNING NAPIER

Taranaki Daily News, 27 February 1931, Page 3

REPLANNING NAPIER

EXAMPLE FROM DUBLIN. GREAT SAVING IN COST. When it comes to replanning. th» business portion,of Napier, it should be of interest to study what was accomplished in this direction in Dublin after the destructive bombardment during the 1916 rebellion. Mr. James Moran, a member of the Senate «f the Irish. Free State, who arrived at Auckland by the Marama on a visit to New Zealand, gave some interesting particulars of this work, with which he was closely associated. '■/ < . , -

“After the rebellion,” he said, “the Corporation of Dublin, of which at that time I was an aiderman, had a Bill, called the Dublin Reconstruction Bill, passed by the British House of Commons by means of which it' was possible to widen the thoroughfares of the devasted part of the city for a fraction of what might have been the cost had the work been carried out by the usual method. A clause in that Bill, known as the Substitution of Sites Clause, gave the Corporation power to widen any thoroughfare by , a very simple procedure.” ' .

The process, in effect, was to set back the frontages of a street and compensate those property-holders who ; were dispossessed with properties, acquired at the rear of the block. It was, in fact, only necessary for the Corporation to purchase two sections, one at each comer of the rear of the block, under this scheme. It was extremely economical to the Corporation and amply satisfied dispossessed owners, who were given equally good business sections at other corners of the same block. ; - “I shall be very pleased to furnish the authorities of Napier with detailed information regarding this scheme, should they so desire,” said Mr. Moran.