CONTROL OF SCHOOL GROUND CONTESTED

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 16

CONTROL OF SCHOOL GROUND CONTESTED

A clash of previous interests arose within minutes of the start of the first meeting of the new board of governors since the new Hagley High School opened. It concerned control of the Ensors road playing fields of the former Christchurch Technical College which were occupied by the Technical High School last year and which the Christchurch Technical Institute now claims to control.

The dispute arose from minutes of a meeting before the Hagley High School opened in which the new board asked about the “transfer” of the playing fields to Hagley. Mr R. Jones, chairman of the Technical board and still chairman of the institute board, said the word “transfer” was not used.

Mr C. H. Russell, also a member of both Technical boards, said he moved the resolution and used the term. There was then a lot of argument about what had been intended, assurances that Hagley would have full use of the ground, and warnings that the institute might need the ground for building. This ended when the meeting agreed to Mr Jones’s name being removed as seconder of the “transfer” inquiry. Later in the meeting the Technical Institute reply to the inquiry said that board was willing that Hagley High School and the two old pupils’ associations have full use of the grounds but that it was considered unwise to part with it because of the long-term needs of the institute. Mr Jones said up to three acres of the Technical site might be taken for reading and workshops which might have to be built at Ensors road. Control Challenged The Hagley headmaster (Mr T. R. Richards) challenged the institute’s control of the grounds. The land was still vested in the former Technical College board and was thus in a vacuum, he said. The merger of the Technical High School and West High School gave Hagley as good a claim to full control of the needed sports grounds as the

institute. Someone had to decide. Mr J. G. Johnston said that the institute as successor to the college was entitled to control the grounds. “Squatters’ rights,” said Mr Jones amid laughter. “At present we have use of the grounds, some time ownership will be determined, and we’ll keep away from that brick wall meantime,” said the chairman (Mr ,H. R. Peers).