GRANT’S HILL SUBSTATION.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 19093, 28 January 1932, Page 2

GRANT’S HILL SUBSTATION.

THE GOVERNMENT’S DUTY. “TO PRACTISE WHAT IT PREACHES.” In the course of some introductory remarks before calling upon Mr J. W. Mawson, Director of Town Planning, to address a meeting in the Timaru Borough Council Chambers last evening. the JVlayor (Mr T. W. Satterthwaite) referred to the proposal of the Government to erect a permanent rub-station on Grant’s Hill. He said hat the Council had shown Mr Mawson an area of from 30 to 50 acres of land which would come into the borough after March 31st next. “We also showed him,” continued the Mayor, “quite adjacent to this area another beautiful _§iib-division which, if the Government will carry out in practice what they have put on the Statute Book, and wh’.ch they want other people to observe —if they will set an example and carry out their own laws—that area will very soon become a part of the Borough. It is one of the finest residential areas in Timaru. At the present time there is a sub-station erected on it. When placed there it was regarded as a temporary structure. We find now. however, that this temporary structure is to become permanent. and that the .Government purposes erecting buildings on this site, which when completed, will cost in the i vicinity of £90,000. If the Town Planning Board has any authority at all, and if the Government will practise what it preaches, it will see the wisdom of not having a permanent station erected on this site, and will erect the sub-station at Washdyke. I mention this fact because I feel it is right that the Government should act in accordance with the letter of the law which it has placed on the Statute Book.” (Applause.) At the conclusion of Mr Mawson’s address, the Member for Timaru, Rev. Clyde Carr, M.P., asked, seeing that the Town Planning Act provided that if any individuals or groups of individuals guilty of perpetrating acts inimical to the community at large they could be restrained, the Act could be made to apply to the Government in so far as the sub-station was concerned. Mr Mawson said that the Government had sent out circulars to electric power authorities asking that the utmost be done to preserve the amenities of their district when erecting poles ! and so on. Mr Mawson said that the ! late Sir Joseph Ward’s Government ! had conceded that Crown lands should be treated in precisely the same way as other lands, so far as the Town Planning Act was concerned. Mr W. Hr.nt raised the point that if the Borough Council and the Power Board agreed to find the money to shift the sub-station, the Public Works Department would do what was required Mr Mawson said from his discussion of this matter with officers of the Public Works Department, that was his understanding of the position. It was just a question of who was to foot the bill.