NEW STATION SITE

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 121, 18 November 1932, Page 8

NEW STATION SITE

FIRE BOARD'S MOTE

CLYDE QUAY SCHOOL

POSSIBLE PURCHASE

The Fire Board, at a meeting today, decided to approach the Minister of Internal Affairs • for permission to negotiate for the purchase of the Clyde Quay School site. The land has been offered to the board by the Wellington Education Board as a new fire station site. ;

The discussion was held in committee, and no details as to the price are available for publication.

The question of a new site for the fire station has been thrashed for years, and at no time has there been any clear indication of the ■ likelihood of reconciliation of ideas.

- It now appears that the, board has decided to look elsewhere between the Fire Board and the City Council. Up till now the board has maintained its attitude that, the present site is, under all the circumstances, the most suitable; the council has taken the view that to allow the board to rebuild on that site would.interfere seriously with the proposed . civic centre plan, and-it offered another site in the angle of Wakeficld street and Jervois quay. The rental suggested was £2200 per annum, a figure which the Fire Board considered unduly high, arid for a time the board thought of purchasing a privately owned site of greater area in Cable street, at'a figure very much below the capital represented by a rental of £2200 per year. Presumably • the_ price for the Clyde Quay School site is also well below.the valuation suggested for the alternative site proposed by the council. PROBABLE OPPOSITION. The City Council has taken the attitude that were the board to utilise a city-owned property citizens would benefit in that the return to the council in rental paid by the board would assist city finances through the district fund, and clear indications have been given during discussions at the council table that should the board decide to purchase land other than corporation land strong opposition would be raised to any proposal to raise loan money. That is, the City Council would probably register its protest when the loan proposal came before the Local Government Loans Board.

Those present at the meeting were Messrs. N. W. Nelson (chairman), S. S. Dean, Marcus Marks, F. Meadowcroft and G. C. Edwards. Messrs. E. Semple, M.P., and T. Forsyth were absent.