Wellington City & Suburban Water Supply.

Hutt News, Volume 1, Issue 8, 15 July 1927, Page 1

Wellington City & Suburban Water Supply.

Several questions of moment to our borough, and indeed to the Valley generally, are engaging the minds of the people at the present time; but none is of greater moment, either for the present or, the future, than the "Wellington City and Suburban Water Supply," for which a local Bill will, this session, be introduced in the House. The local bodies concerned are Wellington City Council, Eastern, Petorie, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt Borough Councils, and Hutt County Council. The scheme provides for the conservation of water in and around Akatarawa—the conveyance of such water to all the places above mentioned, for afforestation, and the laying out of pleasure grounds, parking grounds, and scenic areas. The whole scheme will be under a Board comprising representatives from all the bodies concerned, but with_the balance of voting power in the hands of Wellington. The Board is to be given very wide powers indeed, such as, construction of water-works, to break up or dig into the surface of any road, street, private street, or public place within the water-collection area, to raise loans "without a vote of ratepayers" being taken, and many other powers necessary for the carrying out of the scheme . It would be beyond the scope of this article to deal with all, or nearly all, the clauses of the Bill, but we deem it a duty we owe to the public of our own borough to draw attention to the whole scheme and to demand, on behalf of our ratepayers, that the members of our Borough Council give full and close scrutiny to the measure to ensure the safeguarding of our ratepayers' interests. Only a day or two ago the Mayor of ' Wellington made a statement to the effect that Hutt County Council was the only one of the local bodies concerned to take objection to the Bill. We are aware that the general principle has the endorsement of our Borough Council, as it had of the Hutt County, but when this principle

was agreed to, no one knew what the empowering bill would entail; we look feo our Council here to go fully into the Bill, to have it perused and criticised by the Borough Solicitor to ensure that no clause detrimental to our borough goes unchallenged. Dare we hand over these wide powers to the Board or, what is nearer the mark, to the Wellington City Council, with that body dominating the vote of the Board? We see no occasion for undue haste —none exists—no sound reason can be adduced for allowing so far-reach-ing a measure to go before the Local Bills Committee of Parliament without allowing full time for the fullest consideration of it by the local bodies so vitally interested. What do our Mayor and Councillors think? The charge has been made that the Board to be set up will be but a "dummy" and that the real governing body will be the Wellington City Council. There appears to be war T rant for this charge, for one clause reads, "To authorise the 'Council' to appoint such managers, forest officers, engineers, etc." Mark that, these are appointed by Wellington Council—not by the Board. They would logically then be servants of the Council and, as such, beyond any control of the Board. The whole trend of the Bill indicates that Wellington Council controls the whole of the lands, leases, rights, etc., so that the powers vested in the "Board" appear to be nominal. Again, we reiterate the warning to our local Councillors to give their most earnest attention to so big a matter and to pause before committing us to full participation in the scheme.