SPOILING OF SCENERY

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1933, Page 2

SPOILING OF SCENERY

HOARDINGS IN COUNTRY.

RAILWAY DEPARTMENT BLAMED.

The action of the Railway Department in erecting hoardings in places, where they spoiled the view was criticised .by Mr. Edgar F. Stead and others in Christchurch, when a meeting was being held to form an association, the main object of which will be to beautify the country roadsides. He maintained that the department had broken its promise not to put up more of these hoardings. “If we are talking about beautifying the roadsides we must be concerned with the removal of roadside advertisements,” said Mr. Stead. “I feel very strongly about these railway ones. Not long ago the department said, that it would not put hoardings where they would spoil the view, but now it is doing exactly what it promised not to do. The word of the man who gave that promise is not worth the breath that uttered it. We are not going to get anywhere in our work if this goes on. The railway holds competitions for the best railway station gardens, and then puts these hoardings all over the country. It is not consistent.” Mr. John Mac Gibbon supported Mr. Stead’s views. “I have seen a whole rock face in one of the Otago gorges defaced by a single vast advertisement, he said. “I cannot understand the mentality of the man who does that.” Mr. R. B. Owen said that the Christchurch Beautifying Association had made representations to the oil companies about some hoardings along the Midland raliway line, and the companies had removed them. Now the Railway Department was erecting hoardings in that district, obscuring exactly the same view. It could not be too strongly emphasised that business would be none the worse for the omission of these hoardings. The oil companies were defended by Mr. F. W. Johnston. The motorists’. organisations had made representations about hoardings to the companies, he said, and their attitude had been favourable, many hoardings being removed. Unfortunately one company had begun erecting hoardings again, and the others had to follow. “There’s one good rule to follow in this,” said Mr. Orton Bradley. “Don’t buy from anybody who puts up a hoarding in a beauty spot.”