The Star. MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1923. THE SEASIDE RESORTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16940, 15 January 1923, Page 6

The Star. MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1923. THE SEASIDE RESORTS.

The need for developing the eity’s seaside resorts is brought under notice again by the success of the New Brighton gala, a fixture which waa organised this year for beach improvement and the fuller equipment of the life-saving club. Similar local movements may be noted from time to time in other centres, very often on a larger scale. For instance. Timaru has lately concluded a week of carnival for the further improvement of Caroline Bay, and Nelson is planning a similar carrival. These gala occasions tend, to draw visitors to seaside towns and put | money in the pockets of the townspeople. Christchurch has its carnival week and • its Grand National Week, which serve the same purpose, but the people of Christchurch, and, particularly the younger generation, do not enjoy the full pleasure that the beaches should afford them. The development of the city’s seaside resorts is a question to which the city, in oommon with the three boroughs of Lyttelton, Sumner and New Brighton, ought to i urn its attention straight away. Little or nothing has been done, in spite of all that has been writfceh in the past thirty years, to bring either Sumner or New Brighton up to date fit a proper seaside resort. They are loth purely residential, and yet they < ught also to be playgrounds for a ' growing city. It is true that Christchurch, as cities go, has a wide area of playgrounds, but while these serve the ordinary needs of the youth of the community, the seaside offers attractions ot a special tonic quality, which have ihe extra charm, in youthful eyes, of a pleasant tram ride there and back. Lyttelton, which has Corsair Bay and other favoured seaside nooks, has never ; attacked the playground problem seriously. because it is a hard-working port and has its own affairs to attend to. but there is always the possibility that the fuller development of Lyttelton is not far off. As for Sumner and. New Brighton, both boroughs, quite naturally, consider first the needs of their inhabitants—the people who pay the rates—and in both cases (in Sumner much more than in New Brighton) the residents seem to take up, consciously or unconsciously, an attitude of indifference, if not of hostility, towards the day-by-day visitor; but it is an attitude that cannot be sustained and will not be sustained, for it is out of the question that a section of the community can hold a monopoly of sea and air and bill and sand dune. The ultimate solution of this particular problem will doubtless be that the city will take over 1 oth boroughs, neither of which is prepared to face the expense necessary for rendering the beaches real playgrounds for the city. Meanwhile it is gratifying to know that the latest local effort in this direction has been so heartily sc pported.