UNDER CONSIDERATION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 40, 14 January 1944, Page 4

UNDER CONSIDERATION

EVER since the late Lieut. A. G. Hultquist represented the Bay of Plenty, Whakatane has been promised a new post office,, a public facility which was long overdue and for which the money has now been standing on the Government estimates for the past six years. The existing Post Office, built originally for a town with less than half the present population is now hopelessly outdated and has, become a real handicap to the growing* task of postal administration which owing to the. war has been stepped up in subsidiary duties more than any other department in the public service. Whakatane residents, however have been patient under the official assurance that the projected building of the new Post Office would be put in hand just as soon as conditions permitted. Such answer was taken broadly to mean, —until the post-war period arrived when building and all other trades now affected by the conflict would be once again operating on a normal basis. All this would have been taken as a normal assurance of good faith were it not for the recent announcement by the Postmaster General, Hon. P. C. Webb, that Cabinet had approved of the erection of a new two-storied Post Office for Te Aroha with separate residence for the postmaster, and the assurance that it would probably be commenced in the New Year. Our knowledge of Te Aroha leads, us to assert that the present building which the Government is .now prepared to demolish, is already a substantial concrete one far in advance of the. Whaaktane office and serving a population of a similar size. When first built the Te Aroha office was intended for a community of much the same size as it stands to-day, though with greater emphasis on the town as a tourist resort. In Whakatane's case the need has a far greater claim to urgency on account of the doubled population over the years and the rambling nature of the delapidated wooden structure still serving the purpose for which it was designed thirty years ago. Why should, we ask, a town like Te Aroha with a much improved building compared with this town's be given preference over the claims of Whakatane, where no demolition expenses are required and where there is an obvious indication of a steadily increasing population and business volume. If the Government can afford to demolish and re-erect a Post Office elsewhere, it can surely afford to put into early operation its long delayed plans and financial allocation which have been earmarked to meet the: growing demands of Whakatane. This matter is one which because of its obvious unfairness, should not be allowed to drop. If Mr J. Thorn, M.P. for the Te Aroha district, can succeed in obtaining authority for the building of a new Post Office in Te Aroha during, the war emergency period, there is no reason to doubt, but that our own representative, by quoting the Te Aroha precedent cannot succeed in doing likewise.