MAKING UP THE £36,000

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 10

MAKING UP THE £36,000

TO PAY FOR DRAINAGE WORKS

BOARD' OF HEALTH AUTHORISES LOAN.

One of the powers of the Board of Health is to authorise local bodies to raise moneys for works considered essential in the interests of the community without recourse to a poll of the ratepayers, and it was this authority which the City Council sought to enable, it to complete the drainage schemes of Onslow and Karori, on which (loan) works there was a shortage of £36,100. The Board of Health has approved of the proposal, and the really serious difficulty which faced the council is removed. The estimated cost of the work in the Onslow area was £50,000, and in the Karori area £48,000, but various unavoidable factors—including the high cost of flotation, payment of, first year's interest and sinking fund charges from the loan, a rise in tho men's wages, and, particularly, the necessity of extensions to the works— brought about a shortage of £36,100 on the two schemes. . . , Under the usual provisions of the governing Act the council has power to raise an additional 10 per cent, of the amount of the original loan, i.e., £9800, still leaving a shortage of £26,300. This is tho amount which the Board of Health has now authorised the council to raise. But for this power of the board, local bodies would at times be in awkward positions, for ratepayers of a town as a whole do not always consider the requirements of ratepayers of one portion of a town; for instance, it was considered very unlikely, a year or so ago, that Wellington ratepayers generally would vote the council authority for the raising of the £26,000 necessary for the provision of water and drainage for Seatoun Heights, though there >was not the slightest doubt that those services wero very necessary to the people of Seatoun Heights. In that case also tho Board of Health came to- the rescue of the council and the people, and though ratepayers in other parts of Wellington might have voted "No" had tho question been put to them on the ballot paper, on the general ground that if money was to be spent it might just as 'well be spent in their districts, no ratepayer said "No" after authority was given, nor would it have much availed him if he had. Tho Board of Health, however, does not approve of every such proposal, and so it was that when the City Council some months ago asked that it should be given authority to raise £25,000 for the provision of additional conveniences in the city, the board replied to the effect that though it was recognised that such provision was urgently necessary it would prefer that the opinion of the ratepayers should first be sought.