BOUNDARY DRAINS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4448, 2 August 1922, Page 2

BOUNDARY DRAINS.

CLEANSING AND MAINTENANCE. Difficulty lias been experienced in the past upon the Hauraki Plains and in other localities owing to the absence of legislative provisions for endforcing the cleansing, maintenance, and repairs of private drains between adjoining holdings, with the result that many necessary drains have been neglected, with' consequent loss to the owners of the land affected entailing decreased production. The Member for Thames has been moving in the matter for some considerable time with a view to 'having the law amended, so as to have boundary drains between private properties placed upon the same footing as a fence, and clause 20 of “ The Land Drainage Bill,” now before Parliament. is designed to bring about this result Clause 20 reads as follows : “Section six of the Land Drainage Amendment Act, 1920, is hereby amended by adding the following subsection : (2) Where any drain (not being a drain constructed, maintained, or controlled by a Drainage Bpai d as aforesaid) is constructed between adjoining lands (whether such drain is throughout its course on .the land of one adjoining owner or is partly on the land of one such owner and partly on the land of any other such owner or owners) such drain, together with any embankment adjacent thereto., sha'll for the purposes of the Fencing Act, 1908, be deemed to be a fence, and the provisions of sections thirty-one to thirty-five of the Fencing Act, 1908 (relating to the repair of fences), shall apply thereto accordingly as if the cleansing, maintenance, and repair of such drain, or the maintenance and repair of such embankment were the repair of a fence.”