AIR-BASE SURVEY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 34, 24 February 1937, Page 5

AIR-BASE SURVEY

-Presa Awociation.)

Areas Pegged But no Offer fo Buy Made AUCKLAND POSITION

(By Telegraph-

AUCKLAND, Last Night. Surveys of about eight areas on the outskirts of Auckland, particulariy in the district between Hobsonville and Kumeu, have recently been carried out by surveyors of the Public Works Department, and the data has been lorwarded to Wellington to the special staff of Air Force officers under Wing Commander the Hon. R. A. Cochxane, the expert of the British Air Ministry, who has come to New Zealand to advise the Government on air defence. Apart from general surveys which rave re cently been completed in the Riverhead and Whenuapai districte, areas near Papakura and Mangere have also been pegged. Besides several land suiveys careful air surveys have also been conducted, and Wing-Commander Cochrane himself flew for three hours lecently over the Hobsonville-RiverhGad-Kumeu diBtricts to familiarise himself with the cotintry. Three weeks ago, five eurveyora of the Public Works Department completed the peggingi and surveying of an area of over 400 acres of flat Jand in the Riverhead district. Farmers -in the locality, hearing of the suggestion that a new military aerodrome is to be built in the district, are becoming increasingly perturbed. No offer for their land, which is valued at over £40 an aere, has yet been received by any of the 16 whose property has been pegged. Some point to the suggestion that Riverhead is to be the site of a new military aerodrome is given by the f&ct that recently the principal of one of the Auckland breweries offered the owner of the Riverhead Hotel a con siderable sum more than he paid for it. The hotel is now under a four-year lease to the brewery. The owner at the moment is not prepared to sell. He only recently bought it, and although he had an opportunity of making a considerable sum of money he declared to-day that he would not sell it at present for £50,000.