OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 February 1942, Page 2

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

LANSDOWNE SCHOOL (To the Editor.) Sir,—The protest of the committee of the Lansdowne School in reference to the decision of allowing the school tobe utilised as an emergency hospital is, to my way of thinking, fully justified and the resolution to call a public meeting to support the committee’s protest is one which should be strongly supported by every resident within the school area. No clear thinking member of the public would for one moment offer any objection to the use of any and every suitable building in this district to cope with any major emergency brought about by enemy action, but to deprive a district of its only school for any other purpose seems to me to be a very wrong policy. The proposals that have been before the public through your columns reflect very little credit on the actions of those responsible for our emergency measures. The question of additional hospital beds has been one occupying the minds of our authorities for some months. Discussions, presumably of a particularly urgent nature, have apparently taken place with the authorities concerned and, to avoid any disruption in the school life of our children, a scheme to erect a temporary wing to our present hospital received some consideration. Plans, specifications, ways and means were apparently discussed and a scheme to erect a temporary hospital at an estimated cost of £5,000 was evolved. What has happened to this proposal? Today we find a protest from the Lansdowne School Committee and at the same time we learn that some authority has approved a contract to erect an annexe at the school at a cost in the vicinity of £1,200 —for a temporary building to provide lavatory and bath accommodation, which would be useless for any other purpose once the period of emergency has passed. 1 ask again what has become of the £5,000 proposal for a building that would meet the requirements of the Wairarapa Hospital for an indefinite period and would obviate the possibility of the school being used to the detriment of the district?

Surely members of the public have a right to ask on whose authority the expenditure of a sum of £1,200 or more of public money has been authorised for a temporary building that may never be used, and a modern school threatened with being closed, when other buildings could very easily meet such an emergency. I very much trust that the meeting of protest will convey some pertinent resolutions to the authorities concerned.—l am, etc., PARENT. Masterton, February 25.