NOR’WEST NEWS
Tuesday January 24 2017
News Foul smell in Papanui’s past By Murray Williams, Papanui Heritage Group IN 1922, the ratepayers of the most urbanised part of Papanui voted to amalgamate with Christchurch city. Prior to this, the whole of the Papanui area had been administered by the Waimairi County Council and there was a large degree of dissatisfaction with the level of service provided by this authority in comparison to those that were enjoyed by people living in Christchurch. One such example was that since the 1880s, the more central parts of Christchurch had enjoyed the luxury of a sewerage system that removed human waste from individual properties via underground pipes. However, those who lived on the outskirts of the city, for example ‘out in Papanui’, still relied on the collection of ‘night soil’ by the ‘night man’ on a weekly basis. This was an insanitary and malodorous method. The contents of the cans were either buried in sand hills or dumped in waterways. The longed for relief was not
DIRTY WORK: Papanui residents relied on the collection of ‘night soil’ by the ‘night man’ on a weekly basis, an insanitary and malodorous method of dealing with sewage.
however instantaneous. Many Papanui citizens had failed to appreciate that providing a sewerage system was not the role of the city council. In fact it was the responsibility of the independent Christchurch
Drainage Board and Papanui had to wait its turn for the board’s timetabled installation programme. The Papanui Progress League, a lobby group which had been formed to support the amalgamation with the city, kept up the pressure on the city
council, which was responsible for the supervision of night soil collection. On February 17, 1927, the secretary of the league fired off an angry letter to the Christchurch town clerk in which he protested at night carts starting the collection of human effluent as early as 7pm when it was still daylight. The letter said: “The league realises that it may be difficult to do all the districts after dark, so long as this system, a link with the stone age, exists … but it is nothing short of a scandal that the pure air should be polluted with these abominations at such an early hour.” The league at least received a speedy reply. On February 19, the town clerk conceded that collection should not start before 11pm but noted that the relevant by-law did not limit the hours that night carts could travel on streets. Papanui had to wait until 1928 before contractors started work on the system which finally delivered this undoubted benefit of urban living to what was then Christchurch’s most northern suburb.
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St Margaret’s Church rebuild on the cards By Andrew King A BISHOPDALE church gutted by an arsonist could be torn down with the rebuild under way by mid-year. The St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church on Farrington Ave suffered almost $2 million in damage when Cheyenne Destiny Jade Reed, a 35-year-old technician, broke into it and started a fire in May. Reverend Andrew Nicol said while some in the community are still dealing with the loss of the church, most are in good spirits. “The timeline for a rebuild is not clear yet, but we are hopeful we could be building our new church halfway through the year,” he said. He said while most of the new building will be covered by insurance, he wanted to see some fundraising from the congregation to show real ownership. “This would show we are completely behind the rebuild,” he said. Currently the congregation meets at Isleworth School. Reed was jailed for six years for the arson and other charges, including burglary, unlawful possession of a knife, breach of bail, receiving a computer and theft of a car.