WAIKATO AIRPORT

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21191, 14 August 1940, Page 9

WAIKATO AIRPORT

POSITION DURING WAR

COUNTY COUNCIL’S VIEWS MORE INFORMATION WANTED When progress on the scheme for control by a board of the Waikato Airport was reported to the Waikato County Council today, doubt was expressed by members as to whether the scheme should be proceeded •with during the war. A request was received from the Hamilton Borough Council for urgent approval of a draft agreement for control by the local authorities of the airport, but the County Council deferred approval because it required more information about the position since the outbreak of war. Mr P. E. Dingle said the original intention was that the aerodrome would be self-supporting. However, commercial aviation had become almost stagnant as a result of the war. He would not like to see money spent on the aerodrome only to see the Government take it over as soon as it was ready. “A Dead Horse” “It looks to me,” said Mr Dingle, “like a dead horse. I cannot understand why it has been proposed to proceed with the scheme.” The County Council had agreed last year to contribute up to a maximum of £IOO a year. The chairman, Mr J. A. Sampson, said there was a possibility that that amount would, be exceeded if the proposed agreement were accepted. The draft forwarded from the Hamilton Borough Council was of an agreement to be made between the Waipa, Waikato and Raglan Counties and the Boroughs of Cambridge, Huntly, Morrinsville ,and Hamilton, and the proposed Waikato Airport Board, based on the decisions reached at a meeting held in July last year, concerning the acquisition of the area at Rukuhia for the purposes of an aerodrome. Two Boroughs Out It was originally intended that the Boroughs of Te Awamutu and Ngaruawahia were also to be parties, and their shares in the ownership of the land and the responsibility for any deficit in revenue were fixed at 8.6 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively of the 60 per cent allotted to the boroughs. Unfortunately, stated a communication from the Hamilton Borough Council, the councils of these two local authorities to date have declined to have anything to do with the proposals. In view of the importance attached to the scheme and to meet this difficulty, the Hamilton Borough Council agreed meanwhile to carry their liabilities, and consequently its proportion had been increased from 62.8 per cent to 76.8 per cent. It was also intended that there should be 10 local body representatives on the proposed board, four from Hamilton, four from the contributing counties, and two from the contributing boroughs. The Local Bills Committee cut this number to half.

It was proposed, as soon as the majority of the contributing local authorities had approved the draft agreement, to call meetings of delegates to appoint representatives to the board.

The Borough Council expected to have the Loans Board’s approval of the raising a sum of £13,000 at an early date. A written assurance had been received from the Minister of Public Works that the Government would undertake the whole of the surface development at its own cost within twelve months of the acquiring of the land by the board. It was proposed to secure the land as soon as the loan authority was received, subject to the contributing local authorities completing the agreement.