FLOOD DAMAGE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4879, 18 September 1925, Page 3

FLOOD DAMAGE.

ENORMOUS COST TO GOVERNMENT CRIPPLING LOCAL AUTHORITIES. Commenting on the increased expenditure for flood damages, in the -Public Works Statement the Hon. J. G. Coates says :— “I regret that it is again necessary to state that on account of exceptional floods damage to roads and bridges has been very considerable. The department’s expenditure under this heading for the past year again, unfortunately, constitutes a record. In very many cases the cost of restoration was quite beyond the resources of the local bodies, and the Government was appealed to for liberal assistance, I desire tp. point out in this connection that the granting of Government assistance for restoration of flood damage is very closely controlled. The department’s everincre,asing' expenditure under flood damage mihgt indicate the development of a policy whereby all damage due to floods, even of a more or less trivial nature, is subsidised. This, is by no means the position. Every application for Government aid is very carefully investigated by the department, and before-any subsidy is approved the local body’s ability to meet the cost of restoration from its own financial resources, and the question whether or not any or all of the damage can rightly be attributed to neglected maintenance, ill-considered design, faulty constructional work, or to causes beyond the reasonable provision of the local authority, are carefully gone into. • “The cost of restoring this damage by flood being very considerable, both to the local authorities and to the Crown, seems to indicate that some better method of finance its called for. The expenditure may be a serious drain on the Government’s financial resources, but it is crippling on the local authorities. I am of the opiir ion-that the time has now arrived when local authorities should be empowered, and required by legislation, to set up reserve funds to provide for such exceptional occurrences, Tnis proposal is, now being investigated by departmental officers, and it is hoped that a means may be evolved whereby the revenue bf any one year should be relieved, of the heavy drain due to those spasmodic occurrences.”