PLIMMERTON PLAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 138, 8 December 1938, Page 8

PLIMMERTON PLAN

LOAN OF £34,000

WATER AND SEWERAGE

Plimmerton and Karehana Bay ratepayers are concerned about the question of an adequate water supply and sewerage scheme. One has been proposed to cost £34,400, but some 100 ratepayers have petitioned against it, and, .before committing the ratepayers as a whole to the expense of a loans poll, it has been decided to take a postal ballot over the Plimmerton water and sewerage special district. The cost of connection chai'ges will have to be paid by the owners, and are not included in the loan proposal. It will be necessary to pledge an annual rate of 3d in the £, equal to a charge of £6 5s per annum on a property valued at £500. Owing to the stipulation of the Health Department, separate loans for water and sewerage are impossible, and the issue will be submitted as a combined loan of £34,000.

If the loan is authorised and the work proceeds, the Hutt County Council will arrange to borrow to enable owners to raise loans from it so that the cost of sewerage connections may be repaid by monthly instalments. If the postal ballot is favourable, a poll will be taken early in the New Year.

These facts have been placed before the ratepayers by the county. The following reasons in favour of the postal ballot and scheme have been advanced by the Plimmerton and Karehana Bay Ratepayers' Association, says its chairman, Mr. J. Wallace.

Only one-fourth of the ratepayers reside in Plimmerton, fully half on the roll being represented by Wellington ratepayers, but only 36 out of the 220 Wellington ratepayers have signed the petition, and it is felt that all should give a definite expression of their opinion. The same applies to the owners resident in the province, where only a few out of the 80 ratepayers there have declared their stand.

What was considered to have retarded Plimmerton most, apart from transport, said Mr. Wallace, was lack of water and drainage, and with the new Paremata bridge in use and improved railway services, there was every opportunity of developments of great advantage if the scheme was carried out. On a £500 property the cost, apart from the cost of connections, would be less than 2s 6d per week. The scheme would attract additional population, with a possible reduction of the water and sewerage rate.

The clock-distance of Plimmerton, with the advent of the electric train service,, Mr. Wallace said, was only 20 minutes, and there were few of the outlying Wellington suburbs which could be reached in that time, at least by tramway transport.