WAR MEMORIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1922, Page 4

WAR MEMORIAL.

QUESTION OF THE SITE. CAN THE COUNCIL GIVE IT? A LEGAL DIFFICULTY. The question of the war memorial site in New Plymouth, which had been deferred at last week’s meeting of the Borough Council on account of the absence of the Mayor (Mr. F. E. Wilson), ’ arose at last night’s council meeting. A deputation had waited on the council, asking that the borough reserve opposite the railway station be set aside for the erection of a cenotaph. The Mayor said last night that on looking into the law on the subject with regard to the possession of this land, it had been found that the land, part of it at any rate, was apparently subject to a trust. In 1898 a private Act had been passed, at the suggestion of the then New Plymouth Borough Council, altering the purpose of the reserve in King Street, evidently when that street was being put through. It had then been set aside for the building of a town hall and public lecture room. When the council exchanged with the Harbor Board for the land opposite the railway station, it was seemingly a condition that the land exchanged should be held on the same terms. Unless an amendment, of which there seemed to be no knowledge, bad been since passed, a portion of the land opposite the railway still has a trust attached to it. Legislation, at least, was required to set the position right. Od the motion of the Mayor, the matter was left to him to confer with the council’s solicitors.