WHEREAS by the Municipal Corporations’ Reserves Ordinance of Canterbury, 1868, it was enacted, inter alia, that certain lands and tenements and hereditaments, including the parcel of land hereinafter described, should be and the same were thereby transferred to and vested in and held by the Mayor, Councillors, and Citizens of the City of Christchurch and their successors as a body corporate, in trust as and for sites for public buildings, for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of the City of Christchurch; and it was by the said Ordinance further enacted that it should be lawful for the Superintendent in Council to grant and convey to the said body corporate all the said lands, tenements, and hereditaments, including the said parcel of land, upon trust for the several purposes thereinbefore expressed: And whereas by deed of conveyance dated the eighth day of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, the said Superintendent of the Province of Canterbury, in exercise of the powers so vested in him by the said Ordinance, did convey and assure unto the Mayor, Councillors, and Citizens of the City of Christchurch and their successors, inter alia, all that parcel of land, being Reserve No. 10, containing sixteen perches, more or less, situate in Oxford Terrace West, having one chain frontage on the north side of Worcester Street, and extending back northerly in a rectangular block a distance of one chain immediately north of and opposite to Reserve No. 9, and being one of the parcels of land mentioned and referred to in the said Ordinance as aforesaid, upon the several trusts aforesaid: And whereas buildings have heretofore been erected thereon as offices for the use of the City Council of Christchurch, and the said buildings have been and are still occupied and used by the said City Council as offices: And whereas the said buildings are no longer suitable or adequate for such purposes, and the Christchurch City Council has acquired certain other lands in the said city, at a distance from the said Reserve No. 10, for the purpose of erecting thereon, inter alia, offices more suitable for the Council and for the accommodation of its officers and office staff, and in consequence thereof the said buildings on the said Reserve No. 10 will be presently rendered vacant; and it is desirable that the said Council shall be empowered to let and give leases of the said buildings on the said-Reserve No. 10 in manner hereinafter appearing: