BOROUGH POWER PLANTS.

Putaruru Press, Volume III, Issue 94, 13 August 1925, Page 5

BOROUGH POWER PLANTS.

PROPOSED PURCHASE. By Thames Valley Board. A few months ago the Thames Val

ley Electric Power Board approached . the Thames and Te Afoha boroughs ; asking if these bodies would sell their t generating- plants to the board. Both > councils refused. At Tuesday’s meeting- of the board : Mr. J. Price again introduced the subi ject and »said that it was almost a national consideration for Te Aroha and Thames boroughs to reconsider the matter for the benefit of both the board and the boroughs concerned. Since his first advocacy of the matter he load gone into it more fully and he submitted a lengthy and detailed statement which showed! that the cost from £IOOO of revenue received in 1924 from sale of power at Te Aroha was £152 9s, Thames £238 18s and Thames Valley Board £137 Is. The revenue from sale of power received by the Thames and Te Aroha was £12,392, with a combined population of 7210. The revenue received by the board from Paeroa, Morrinsville and Matamata, including a small outside meter area, was £13,766, with a population of 4125. The approximate total number of units used was 10,059,239, which returned Id per unit. The total cost to the Government was £21,251 on .507 per unit, which left a profit per unit of .903. The board’s revenue, leaving out Thames and Te Aroha £55,520, units sold to boroughs on 9,112,579 and returned 1.46. The cost paid by boroughs was £19,645 or .517. The local bodies taking the power, he continued, should have to pay a share of the cost of the hoard’s depots over the w-hole district. The board was selling the electricity at the sacrifice of the country consum- ] ers. He moved that Thames and Te ; Aroha Borough Council’s be asked to reconsider the matter. i

,Mr. Flatt seconded and said that opportunity should be given the local bodies to consider the mater, not from the purely local point of view, but from the district viewpoint.

Mr. Arthur considered that the mass of information and figures given by Mr. Price could not be taken down or understood by the board members, perhaps not even by the press, and he considered that Mr. Price should set down his information in some tangible form.

The chairman said he agreed with the broad principle of having- the one controlling authority ; in fact the Prime Minister was endeavouring to have some authority to link the operations of the whole of the power boards in the Dominion.

Mr. Thomas considered that the board had made a mistake in selling the power in bulk to any portion of the area.

The matter was eventually deferred till the next meeting, in the meantime Mr. Price to refer Ms figures to the engineer.