BEACH IMPROVEMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 121, 25 May 1938, Page 6

BEACH IMPROVEMENT

qUE formation of the Beach Improvement Society marks a revival of civic pride. There has been too much discussion concerning what is wrong with Wanganui until everybody is tired of the very phrase. What is lacking is leadership. As, however, leadership has been for some time at a discount with the people of Wanganui, it has chosen no leader for the city. Civic pride comprises the efforts of about five hundred people in a community of twenty-seven thousand—the odd twenty-six thousand five hundred can be relied on to watch the minority do the city’s work and then criticise them. The gallant five hundred in Wanganui want to be inspired by a personality who is capable of giving them that inspiration. However. realising that such leadership is not forthcoming yet awhile, and growing restive at the lack of results arising out of that deficiency, the movement is growing in Wanganui to get something done. The Castleeliff beach is a good starting point, and the river hank is another. The Beach Improvement Society has certainly been wise in undertaking a programme which should be within its compass. The planting of trees is the first need of the beach area, and their preservation, when they have been planted, is also likely to present itself as a problem. The eztension of another road right to the beach would certainly be convenient, while the proposal to floodlight the beach in summer time would lead to an extension of the uses to which the beach could be put. The new society certainly merits public encouragement.