NEW TRAFFIC OUTLET

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1004, 21 June 1930, Page 1

NEW TRAFFIC OUTLET

SHORTLAND STREET POST OFFICE SITE GOVERNMENT WILL SELL The Postmaster-General, the Hon. j. B. Donald, has announced that Cabinet has drawn up terms upon which it is willing to sell the Shortland Street Post Office site to the City Council. The Minister said that until the letter containing the Governments formal offer had been received by the council he could not disclose details L»f it, except to say that the proposed terms of sale were not harsh, and a small portion of the site would be reserved for a post office. Inquiries at the Town Hall today found official unwillingness to disclose Cabinet’s requirements until the Postmaster-General's letter has come before the council. The proposal to transfer the old post office site to the council in order that a street might be made through it has been under discussion for a great many years. The block bounded by Shortland. Fort and Queen Streets, and Emily Place bars the way of an alternative route parallel with Queen Street by nay of Commerce, High and Lome Streets. Now that High Street has been widened it is only necessary to cut a roadway through the old post office site in order to complete this thoroughfare, which, it is expected, will have direct access to the waterfront when the site of the present Auckland nay station is vacated and subdivided The post office site has a frontage of about 70ft to both Shortland and Port Streets, and probably the whole of it will not be needed for the proposed street. The negotiations continued over many years, chiefly because the price demanded by the Government was much more than the council was prepared to pay.