HARBOUR BRIDGE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 10

HARBOUR BRIDGE

AUCKLAND COUNCIL ATTITUDE. SURRENDER OF THE CHARTER. The forfeiture of the Auckland Harbour Bridge Company’s charter and the repeal of its empowering Act were recommended by the Auckland City Council on Thursday. The Mayor, Mr. G. W. Hutchison, stated after the meeting that the council had discussed at some length certain proposals that had been submitted to it in connection with the proposed Auckland Harbour Bridge. The council, the Mayor said, had “unanimously decided that it must be a condition precedent to the giving of any fresh consideration to the council’s attitude toward the bridge proposal that the charter held by the Auckland Harbour Bridge Company Limited should be surrendered to the Government and that the Auckland Harbour Bridge Empowering Act, 1931, be repealed.” HISTORY OF THE COMPANY.: The Auckland Harbour Bridge Company has been in existence a little over four years. The bridge project, upon which a Royal Commission originally reported in 1921, was sponsored for a number of years by the Waitemata Harbour Bridge Committee. In. 1928 the Auckland Harbour Bridge Association was incorporated. Late in the following year a special Royal Commission was set up, with Mr. F. W. Furkert, Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, as chairman, to consider the feasibility of the scheme. Its report, issued in May, 1930, was to the effect that the project was 20 years ahead of its time. Members of the Harbour Bridge Asso-/ ciation were undeterred, and in November, 1930, the Auckland Harbour Bridge Company was registered with a capital of £5OOO in £1 shares. After negotiations with representatives of Dorman, Long and Company, contractors for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a bill authorising the company to obtain a charter to carry out the work was introduced into Parliament. Various delays occurred, and the measure was considerably amended before it became law in the following October. In its original form the Bill gave the company two years and three months from the commencement of the Act in which to begin the erection of the bridge, failing which the charter and the Act were to lapse. However, by a later amendment it was provided that the company must begin the work of erection within two years after it had received the. “approved plans” of the structure from the Governor-General-in-Council, otherwise the charter and the Act would lapse. However, as the company has not so far presented, plans to the local bodies and the Govemor-General-in-Council for approval, its charter is considered to run indefinitely, the two years’ time limit not operating until the company brings about the contingency already mentioned.