TUNNEL ROAD PROPOSAL

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23964, 3 June 1943, Page 3

TUNNEL ROAD PROPOSAL

♦ VIEWS OF HARBOUR BOARD MEMBERS The attitude of the Lyttelton Harbour Board to a tunnel road was discussed briefly by the board yesterday, when the board agreed to send delegates to a conference to be held shortly to discuss the tunnel road as a rehabilitation work. Commenting on a suggestion that the board reaffirm its resolution of 1937 to take steps to cope with additional shipping which might be attracted to the port, Mr R. E. Cairns said that delegates should be instructed to support the tunnel road scheme. Reconsidered that the board had previously taken a neutral attitude. Mr F. W. Freeman said that ’ the scheme was now a rehabilitation proposal. It should, ethically, be supported by the metropolitan area. The voting of the i 937 conference, of 23 to five, would have been 24 to four if the Harbour Board had not brought up the bogies of town versus country and of £2.500,000 of possible harbour expenditure, which had nothing at all to do with the scheme. Mr J. W. Bowden said that the figure of £2,500,000 was no bogy. That question had been examined fairly carefully. The tunnel road was an excellent idea, said Mr R. T. McMillan, but it would involve reconstruction of the inner harbour if wharf access was to be given, and unless there was that access there would not .be the same value in having a tunnel road. He suggested that delegates to the conference should have a free hand. Pointing out the advantages of the scheme in removing Lyttelton’s comparative isolation and in moving towards the future development of the areas on the other side of the harbour. Mr W. S. Mac Gibbon recalled his prediction some years ago that some day a disaster possibly in the form of an enormous conflagration might comev* and all would wish that there was a tunnel road, so that loss of lives and property could be saved. Everyone now knew how near that prediction had come to fulfilment. After further discussion, the board adopted an amendment by Mr J, K. McAlpine, by seven votes to six, that delegates should attend the conference free to vote, especially because of the possibility of new information being disclosed in the discussion. MANUFACTURERS APPOINT DELEGATES The council of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association last, evening appointed Messrs T. H. Lawn and' C. S Peate as its delegates to the conference called by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce to discuss the tunnel road scheme. The council agreed that until they reported back the delegates should not do anything to tie the association’s hands, and there was a full discussion on how the scheme affected manufacturing interests particularly. „ , „ , . The president (Mr A. M. Hollander) suggested that the delegates should see that the tunnel road scheme was not advanced at the expense of Christchurch. It was possible that a great deal of harm had been done to Christchurch by exaggerated remarks at previous meetings showing all the things that were wrong with the city. They had been used by other centres against Christchurch development.