PERMANENT LEVELS FOR GORE TOWN.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 353, 2 May 1884, Page 2

PERMANENT LEVELS FOR GORE TOWN.

At the last meeting of the local Town Board Commissioner Jambs Beattie gave notice of the following motion for the 9th instant •• — " That the engineer be instructed to give permanent levels for the town, the County Engineer to be consulted regarding the main street." We hope this will be cai*ried, and that the argument Commissioner Pillee advanced .at the last meeting that such a matter should not be meddled with till after the formation of a Municipality will not be again listened to. Long before this advanced pepiad in our history the Board should have defined £he street lines and taken permanent levels. Their absence is now keenly felt by those meeting or about to build permanent structures, and to show how serious may be the result we propose briefly to refer to a case that has been brought under our notice. The Bank of New Zealand were about erecting a handsome brick structure on the corner of the Main and Irk street^. Their contractor applied for levels and got them from the Board's engineer. A staff of men was put on, and in making necessary excavation.- for the I'oundati. n what should they find in made earth bu% the old peg inserted when the town was .surveyed years ago ! If this was in the proper position, then the peg given by MrJSsw? was t^a inches on lrji' street; . \ ' I

>{, andj^Mr Bbws is right, then it follow buildings in the main street that fhave.?-been .erected on the lines laid down in • jofficial surveys are -„ not .■■'invariably within their proper boundaries, always assuming of course that; the . particular peg if ound on theßankof New Zealand's section, was in its, proper place. Possibly it had been shifted at soine time. At. anyrate, its' disco very was sufficient to cause the contractor to make investigations, but the result is that the building will be erected in accordance with the peg of Mr Bews. We need hardly point out the complications that will ensue should buildings be erected on the street line ; for they will be apparent to all our readers, and especially to those acquainted with the mess that has been made of the Invercargill surveys through the combined efforts of Messrs Maben and Thomson. They hare been fighting the battle there for years, and as we grow older we shall have a battle to fight unless the Town Board does its duty and provides the town with its street lines and levels. There is another point in connection with the Bank of Wew Zealand, and that is that it will be some two feet above the line of the footpath, which will require to be raised unless an eyesore is to be left in the Main street. Presuming that a proper* level' has b^en given — and we believe it has — the bank will also be on higher ground than other probably permanent buildings in the Main Main Btreet, tb.ua preventing that harmony that should be a characteristic of all to^ns with any pretensions to architectural beauty.