MEETING AT WOOLSTON.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2554, 15 June 1882, Page 4

MEETING AT WOOLSTON.

Last Tuesday a pnblio meeting wai held in the Oddfellows' Hall, Woolaton, to consider the advisableneßß or otherwise of forming Woolaton into a separate township. Mr J. H. Hopkins was voted to the chair. About ninety persons were present. Mr A. Dunbar statod the scope of the Act. The object in view should be obtained by a petition, signed by two thirds of the householders residing in the proposed area, which must not embrace more than two square miles. Xhe Act was worked under a Board of commissioners, not less than five, or more than seven. A mayor was not required, neither were the expensive surroundings of a "brtougb. Xhe rating powers were limited to striking a rate of Is a year. Xhe Board would act as a Board of Health, and would ■not, he imagined, allow Ohristchuroh to drain its filth into that diotrict. [Applause.] Special rates could be levied only on petition, signed by a majority. Xhis would apply to auoh works as side-channelling. Xhe moneys would be under the Board's control, subject to Government iaspeotor's audit. In course of time, no doubt, the district would bo formed into a borough, Xhe total area would be less than 900 acres. Xhe rateable value of Woolston that side of the river would be nearly £7OOO, the other side would give £1366. license!, &c, would furnish £7O. In all, an income of £550 would be available, exclusive of the share of the Boad Board's property (£l5O to start with), and of the Government grant. Xhe expenditure under the Boad Board in the proposed district bad been : In 1879, £231 lis 3d s in 1880, £220 10a 63 ; and in 1881, £205 9s, exclusive of that portion of the Perry road running down that district. Including this the Boad Board had •pent £3BO to £4OO in and around Woolston, while it had had an income of £SOO from Woolston. It was manifestly unfair to be obliged to contribute to outeide roads. Given an income of £550, and deducting the same amount as during the last three yea-.'s had been spent on the roads, as well as £IOO a year for a clerk, £IOO would be left as a credit balance. On the tramway being opened, blocks would be cut up and placed in the market; hence an increase of the amount derivable fxom rates. A competent man could be obtained to take levels, and so forth, for £IOO a year, the work occupying a couple of days a week. He would move—- " That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable to form all that area as shown on plan oolored yellow (with the exception of a •mall portion belonging to Mr Garland) into a township, to be named ' Woolston,' under the Xown Diotriots Act of 1881, and that a petition to the Governor, praying him to proclaim such district be prepared, and that Messrs Hopkins, Attwood, sen., Hawker, Bamford, J. W. Davis, and the mover, be appointed to collect signatures; and, when sufficient shall have been obtained, to forward same to the member for Heathcote, to ask him to see the provisions contained in the petition carried out. Provided that, in the event of one-third of the residents in South Opawa and Ridley petitioning within seven days against these localities being included within the said township, their wishes be acoeded to, and these localities be omitted from the plan."

[The township, as specified on the plan, would be bounded on the north-east by the Canal reserve; on the south-east by the Heathcote Estuary, the Biver Heathcote, and the eastern boundary of the Hillsborough railway station reserve ; on the south-west by the Lyttelton and Christohurch railway lino ; and on the north-west by the Heathcote and Har good's road.] Mr Batnford, in seconding the resolution, pointed out that the formation of the township would enable local residents to resist the enccaaohments of the Drainage Board. Before the reiolution had assumed its present form, a discussion was shared by Messrs Garland, Douglas (of Ashbourne), Pell (of Badley), Davis, and Attwood. The resolution was carried unanimously, and the meeting closed with a vote of thanks -SV 6'ie chairman.