POWER BOARD DISPUTE

Southland Times, Issue 20082, 20 January 1927, Page 9

POWER BOARD DISPUTE

MATAURA BOROUGH POSITION. FINANCE AND LIGHTING COMMITTEE REPORT. The Finance and Lighting Committee reported having considered the resolution passed at the last meeting of the council regarding the framing of a letter to the Press and to the Minister of Public Works, regarding the actions of the Southland Electric Power Board, and deemed it advisable to bring down this special report, a copy to be sent to the Minister:— In August 1925, members of the committee met and discussed with the chairman and engineer of the Power Board the matter of handing over the borough reticulation to the board. During the discussion, the engineer was asked what was the value of the lines and plant, and he replied that it was not a matter of what the reticulation was worth in materials and plant, etc., but what it was worth to the board, as the law did not allow the board to purchase material that was of no use to them and that the material here that would be of use to it might be worth only £5O. It was decided that, in the interests of the borough, it would be advisable not to hand over to the board, as a source of revenue would be taken away, and full value would not be given for the plant and lines, etc. In short, it would be a loss to the borough to allow the Power Board to take charge of the reticulation. This ended the matter as far as the Power Board was concerned—but only for a time. In May of last year, the board wrote asking what the council intended to do in the matter of supplying power to the dairy factory and collieries. In the opinion of the committee, this was a piece of impertinence on the part of the board. If the council could not supply a consumer who wanted power it would have been easy to ask the board to supply the consumer. The letter was replied to stating that the matter was under consideration of the council. The dairy factory informed the council that it would not need electric power if water were supplied to it, and water was accordingly supplied. In regard to the collieries, the council were at this time negotiating with Beattie, Coster and Co. tor the supply to them of power, and went so far as to draw up a tentative scale of charges, and also met the company’s head with regard to the matter, but nothing definite was decided at that meeting, Mr Penny promising to confer with the committee again before reaching a decision on the matter. In a few days time it was noticed that the board was putting up poles to Beattie, Coster and Co’s property, and later we received a letter from the board’s engineer stating that it proposed to accept an application for power from Beattie, Coster and Co. When this matter was discussed at the November meeting of the council, and the proceedings reported in the Press, the Power Board immediately rushed into print to state that the council had not replied to its letters, and that it was not frank with the board. The board may have written as it stated on other occasions, but no record of these letters is in the borough

office, although we have their letters in re ference to collecting their rates. Tne com

mittee asks: “What had it in this matter to be frank about” with the board? We think the board could have been more frank

with the council, and told it that, it was going to take advantage of the Act. as it now stands, and supply a consumer within our licensed area, whether we had any intention of so doing or not. This is what, has happened since the Power Board first called on us, and we cannot see that any exception can be taken to our actions.

The committee’s report was adopted on the motion of Crs. Aitken and Clark.