21-4-93 15 - 7 - 93 Wigram Sir,-Congratulations to the Mayor on her determination to fight the closing of Wigram air base. Her speech at the RNZAF charter parade ("The Press," April 2) may well have flown in the face of convention but I would have thought that a parade marking the official birth of the RNZAF was an ideal opportunity to comment on the closing of the birthplace. Breaking with convention is a legitimate tactic in fighting the bureaucracy of Wellington-based decision making.-Yours, etc., DENISE MCGREGOR, Chairman, Riccarton-Wigram Community Board. April 2, 1993. Sir,-"It sits uncomfortably to talk of young unemployed being given life-skills training at Burnham while 235 people at Wigram face unemployment because of that base's closing," said "The Press" editorial of March 29. This, together with the many valid, sensible pro-Wigram comments on the same page, made by Alistair Kinniburgh, Murray Bedford, and Denis Hampton surely must convince the politicians that their Wigram cision is seriously misguided. The closing of Wigram will be followed by many flow-on disasters. When the excellent University Cadet Training Scheme becomes more costly it will be pruned or discontinued. The ideal aviation museum environment, buzzing with aircraft and uniformed personnel, will be lost. Air Force recruiting will suffer because Christchurch with its immensely varied tertiary education and job opportunities makes it New Zealand's No. 1 place for bringing up a family. the Government genuinely put jobs before budgets and people before everything else it would close Woodbourne rather than Wigram.-Yours, etc., J. K. MOIR. March 30, 1993. Sir,-Dave Wilson's article about Wigram (March 3l) made interesting reading, but I think that his equating of £100 in pre- World War I New Zealand to $200 gave a misleading impression of the cost of learning to fly. 1 should like to suggest that the £100 in about 1917 was roughly equal to a year's wages for a skilled male worker. It would perhaps have given a more valid comparison if the article had said that it cost a figure equal to a year's income to learn to fly in 1917, or perhaps a substantia! fraction of the cost at that time of a home for a working-class family.- Yours, etc., MAURICE JENNER. April 1, 1993. Council to consider airfield's future The future of the Wigram airfield will be considered by a Christchurch City Council sub-committee on Monday. It will make recommendations which will be considered by the council at a meeting on August 10. Wigram air base's land will be available for sale early in 1996. Should the council decide it needs to keep the airfield going after that date, it would have a complicated road ahead of it, according to council senior planner Mike Reid. Some of the land for the airfield was obtained under the Public Works Act, which meant the original owners' descendants would have first claim on buying the land once it was offered for sale, he said. That reduced the chance of the land being retained as an airfield, as all the claimants would have to agree on that option. But there were still many many of the original owner: ants. Mr Reid said the Departn Information was investigati If the descendants elected would be offered to the Nga It is understood Ngai Tahu are considering the possibilities of the base and will inform the Department of Survey and Land Information of their views in the near future. Altematively, the council could step in and decide to buy the land itself betore it went on sale to the public. The council needed to consider whether it wished to buy the land and for what purpose. If it did buy the land. then whoever leased it from the council would probably have to show they could operate the base as a stand alone enterprise. grey areas, such as how still had living descend- ment of Survey and Land ing such issues. not to buy the land, then it ai Tahu tribe. Facilitator The council could also act as a facilitator, getting all the different claimants together who might then be interested in leasing the air base to aviation users. There were a variety of possible uses for the base that would have to be weighed up by council. One was as an area of future residential growth for the city. Another could be the use of the buildings for educational purposes. A consortium negotiating to take over the base, headed by Bob Davidson, is interested in setting up an international aviation training centre. Lincoln University has also expressed an interest in sharing accommodation and teaching facilities ai the base. Some members of the consortium could be ready to operate from the base as early as September. An aerial view of part of RNZAF Base Wigram, with the Blenheim Rd entrance at the bottom of the photo. The Air Force Museum is the dark grey-roofed hangar at centre-left, above the car park. Some of the land at the base was acquired under the Public Works Act and the descendants of the original owners have first option to buy it the land is sold. • Photo courtesy of RNZAF