IS THE RIVER BED PRIVATE PROPERTY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 323, 20 April 1881, Page 2

IS THE RIVER BED PRIVATE PROPERTY

To the Editor. Sir, —Advertisements from landlords, warning sportsmen to refrain from shooting over their properties, are so numerous now-a-days, that every year the ground open to them becomes more circumscribed, and now, in a notice in your last night’s paper, Mr John Grigg claims that the whole of the laud in the Ashburton river is freehold ; the plain inference of which is, that from bank to bank of the river is private property, and any person crossing the river is allowed so to trespass only on sufferance. I have no wish to trespass on private property for my sport, and so have carefully noted and avoided the proclaimed spots. As the river is now almost the only place open to us sportsmen, will you, Mr Grigg, or his agent, inform me as to whether it is possible for any private individual to buy up a river, and is Mr Grigg’s notice to be taken literally ; if so, I for one will trespass there no more. I am, &c. , Sportsman. [None of the river beds (i.e. , the river courses) in Canterbury are, or can possibly become, the freehold property of anyone; but runholders can prevent persons from trespassing over the bed of the river with dogs, when the river forms the boundary of the runs. —Ed. G.~\