Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 1938. NEW SWIMMING BATHS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 1938. NEW SWIMMING BATHS.

GREAT many people will welcome the news that the Borough Council is looking into the < question of providing new swimming baths in Masterton and that the Borough Engineer is making plans and obtaining information regarding materials, equipment and other details. The question of site is also being considered, and no doubt wisely. Probably it will be agreed generally that the present municipal baths have had their day and that it would be better to construct a new bath than to attempt improvements to the exising one which necessarily would be costly and might prove, in the end, anything but satisfactory.

With the construction of an up-to-date swimming bath in view, at all events as a possibility, Masterton may be interested in an announcement made by the Hou P. C. Webb, when he was visiting Auckland not long ago. Mr Webb said, that his colleague, the Hon W. Parry, had made representations to Cabinet asking it to give whatever assistance was possible to sports bodies to provide facilities in the way Of playgrounds and swimming baths, and that the Government had decided to pay full wages costs to local bodies prepared to push forward such undertakings. The offer of a subsidy amounting to full wages costs maj; give Masterton a reason for making an early start upon the construction of new swimming baths.

Some weight may be attached also to the fact that swimming is bound to take a prominent place amongst the sports which the Government proposes methodically to foster and encourage. Masterton ought to be prepared to play its full part as a district centre in this commendable enterprise, but so far as swimming is concerned is evidently not well placed at present td do so.

The whole question, of course, should be considered by the ratepayers from the standpoint of the advantages to the town and the costs likely to be entailed. It is the more necessary that the position should be considered ini all its bearings since the construction of improved baths very possibly may provide additional reasons for considering some action regarding the town’s water supply. Experimental boring’ has been done of late, in order to test the possibilities of obtaining a. supplementary artesian supply. It ought.to be known shortly whether results of any value are in 'sight.

There should be no attempt to dogmatise on the question of improving and augmenting the water supply. A good deal of water undoubtedly is wasted in Masterton during the summer season. On the other hand, there is no obvious method at present of ensuring an adequate supply at all times for fire-fighting and other purposes, particularly on the higher levels and the outlying areas of the town. It is of some importance, too, that the present soakage intake on the Waingawa is by no means as well secured as could be desired against damage, or even destruction by a heavy flood.

As regards both a new swimming bath and the larger question of the water supply, it is for the people who will be asked to foot the bill to say what is to be (lone, but it is certainly desirable that all the relevant facts of the position should be brought out as clearly as possible.