TRUST HOTEL SCHEME TO BE ABANDONED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 80, 9 August 1950, Page 5

TRUST HOTEL SCHEME TO BE ABANDONED

Because of the difficulty of securing adequate finance for such a project, the scheme for establishing a trust controlled hotel at Edgecumbe is not to be proceeded with. This was decided at a meeting of the committee set up to investigate such a scheme.

Full details of why the project has been abandoned are outlined in a letter to the Whakatane County Council by the chairman, Mr I. B. Gow: He writes:— Project Abandoned

“I have to advise you that at a meeting of my committee on the evening of August 3 a decision was reached to abandon the project to have a Trust Controlled Hotel established at Edgecumbe. “My committee made exhaustive enquiries into all matters, which had any bearing upon this proposal and our final decision has been made for a variety of reasons. For the information of the Council I enumerate the most Important as being:— “(1) The Licensing Control Commission’s insistence upon there being a fully equipped modern hotel of the requisite style (a .20 guestroom hotel) before a licence could be granted. “(2) The present high cost of such a building which made it impossible to suggest, in reporting upon the investigations to my .committee, that money so invested could be regarded as “safely” and profitably invested, except upon a long-term view. “(3) The poor response to our tentative attempts to ascertain what financial backing could be found locally. (We did, however, have one offer of £500). “(4) The unwillingness of lending institutions to finance except under conditions which would load the whole of the risk upon the locality. Committee Regrets

“It is natural that my committee feels some regret in so reporting to those who believe, as many do, that trust control of the sale of liquor is needed. Yet we are still firmly of the opinion that it was the duty of the locality to which a licence bad so recently been granted, to prosecute these enquiries. “May I tender the thanks of my committee to the Council ;for ijts willingness to allow us opportunity tc make these enquiries.”