NEW COURTHOUSE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 December 1931, Page 6

NEW COURTHOUSE

‘WANGANUI CONTROVERSY. ; WANGANUI, December 8. For the past thirty years, the building of ja new Courthouse has been a subject lof heated dispute between the Wanganui Law Society, the City Couricil, and other bodies concerned. Recently the dispute was revived, and it was stated that plans had been suggested on the lines of the new Hamilton Court. Mr D. Mawson, Director of Town Planning, had approved of a site in Queen’s Park, hut other authorities had insisted that ths erection of a large two-storied building there would overshadow the Art Gallery, and the proposed Civic Square. An alternative site on the Moutoa Gardens, where the present Courthouse has stood since the early seventies of last century, was approved by the Law Society, but it was disapproved by the City Council, as it was maintained thafe .the historic gardens should extended and kept open for the public. At a meeting of the Wanganui Chamber of Commerce last night, the President, Mr A. E. Burgess, hinted that there was a probability of an agreement over the site in the near future! The present Court is a single storied wooden .building, the main paid of which was built when Wanganui was still defended by looplioled blockhouses anti high palisades from the attacks’of marauding. Maoris-. It ha s not beejf jpainted since 1915.