The Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 8. 1922. A CORRECT DECISION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16750, 3 June 1922, Page 8

The Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 8. 1922. A CORRECT DECISION.

When the Hospital Board decided some months ago to approach the Domains Board with a request for a transfer of part of Hagley Park to the board for hospital extension purposes we expressed the opinion that the alienation of further areas of this public reserve should be resisted. We are glad to see that the Domains Board has firmly declined the application, as it has determined to adhere to its policy that no part of the park shall alienated. The decision is an eminently proper one, and w© hope that it will convince the Hospital Board that Hagley Park is not to be tampered with. The Hospital Board did not even propose to purchase the land it wanted from the Domains Board, but was apparently suggesting something in the nature of a free gift There is no institution in the city which commands a more sympathetic consideration of its necessities than the hospital, and in the past it lias been very generously treated by the bodies controlling Hagley Park. It is time, however, that the Hospital Board realised that the park is held for the people of the province, and not a*- a hospital building reserve, to be nibbled -at whenever the hospital authorities feel called upon to erect a new building. The Hospital Board a wealthy body, possessing large rating powers, and it is well able to pay for any land that it requires. If it cannot extend on the present hospital area—and we are by no means convinced of that—it should look elsewhere, and it need not go far from its present centre of activity. It has no right to assume that the public of Christchurch will cheerfully part with occasional acres of their valuable heritage in order to save the board from contracting a legitimate liability. M’e hope that the decision of the board will put an end to the attempts to encroach upon Hagley Park by tlv Hospital Board or any other body. The area was set aside for the pleasure an- 1 recreation of the people of Christ church and Canterbury, and on the successive Domain Boards lies the duty of preserving this heritage intact from the grasp of the spoiler. The policy so emphatically affirmed yesterday iw the proper one, and we hope that it will he rigidly adhered to in the future.