BOPDHB History Whakatāne Hospital History Book | Page 25
Following the rejection by the Minister of the Webster’s Hill site in September 1919 the Board moved
that:
...a committee consisting of the Chairman and Mr Buddle be instructed to proceed to Wellington
and lay the claims of the respective sites before the Hon the Minister of Public Health and ask him
to decide the question on the facts submitted: his decision to be final and to be binding upon the
Board.
After the representations in Wellington by Alex Peebles (the Chairman) and Leonard Buddle, (a
Solicitor and recently elected member of the Board), the Board met again on 13 November 191935
and discussed the correspondence from Wellington indicating that the Minister ‘had decided in favour
of Kirk’s site.’ A 15 acre portion of this site, situated between Stewart Street and Bridge Street was
purchased at £180 per acre36. Mr Kirk and Mr Carter had been using the land as a grazing area for
the livestock destined for their butcher’s shop in Whakatāne.
Garaway Street, the other street providing a boundary to the proposed Hospital site, was named after
Mr HO Garaway who, in 1907 owned about five acres between King Street and Garaway Street.
He and his family lived in a house (since demolished) at a site in King Street opposite the exit from
Salonika Street. He was, from 1921 until 1933 the Town Clerk for the Whakatāne Borough Council
and for a short time the Secretary/Treasurer of the new Bay of Plenty Hospital & Charitable Aid Board37
after it moved its headquarters from Tauranga in 1918.
When next in Wellington, the Chairman and Mr Buddle took the opportunity to discuss loan
arrangements with the Public Trustee who advised them that no money would be available until after
1 February 1920 but that ‘application for loans for hospitals received primary consideration.’ In April
1920 however, the Board was told by the Assistant Public Trustee that:
...the Solicitor General was of the opinion that the Public Trustee had no power in the existing
state of the law to lend to Hospital Boards.
As a consequence, the Board was forced to impose a special hospital rate, based on the capital value
of rateable property in the hospital district, on the four Local Bodies to raise the £15,061 needed. The
special rate of one penny and one thirtieth of one penny in the pound was required, with Whakatāne
County contributing £8,073, Whakatāne Borough £993, Ōpōtiki County £4,917 and Ōpōtiki Borough
£1,078.
Bay of Plenty Hospital and Charitable Aid Board Minutes, Volume 1 [03.12.1902 – 21.06.1917],
13 November 1919 (Auckland, Archives New Zealand, Reference ADHL A1669 22975 6)
36
Alison B. Heath, The Opouriao-Taneatua Settlement of 1896, (Whakatāne, Whakātane & District
Historical Society, 1989), pp 83-84
37
Bay of Plenty Hospital and Charitable Aid Board Minutes, Volume 1 [03.12.1902 – 21.06.1917],
22 April 1920, (Auckland, Archives New Zealand, Reference ADHL A1669 22975 6)
35
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