TRANSPORT LOANS CARRIED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 658, 9 May 1929, Page 6

TRANSPORT LOANS CARRIED

Ratepayers’ Emphatic Approval PROPOSALS NOWHERE REJECTED SO emphatic were ratepayers of Auckland City and suburbs in their approval of the Transport Board’s loan proposals submitted yesterday. that in not a single pollingplacc within the board’s wide bounds was either scheme negatived. On the contrary, the people endorsed the major proposal involving £526,600 by more than three to one and the alternative proposal authorising £280,000 was backed overwhelmingly by the vote of four to one.

HTHIS means that the Transport Board has been given a mandate to proceed with the raising of £526,600 for tramway extensions, workshops improvement and the purchase of much-needed tramcars. The £ 250.000 scheme embodied in the larger, therefore, automatically lapses. Even in their most sanguine moments campaigners advocating the loans dared not hope that the proposals would go through jvitli auything more than the slenderest margins, in view of the formidable threefifths majority hurdle imposed by the Local Bodies Loans Act. The approval was more decisive in the districts expecting to he served by the proposed tramway extensions, but voting was solidly in favour even in those other parts which are to receive no direct benefit. Ellerslie and Panmure, for instance, voted 3 to 1 for the proposals, and Newmarket nearly 4 to 1. City’ ratepayers voted fairly consistently for the loans. Platform utterances had led the public to believe Onehunga regarded with disfavour the Transport Board’s policy, but even this district made clear its approval in no uncertain figures. Rarely, If ever before, in the history of Auckland, has so marked an interest been shown in a loan poll as that manifest yesterday throughout the city and suburbs. Of a total roll of approximately 35,000, nearly 18,000 ratepayers —47 per cent. —recorded their votes. No fewer than 1,600 votes, however, were informal. Informal votes were not given from all the polling booths, but those actually counted last night numbered 1,602, relating to both proposals, of which 1,178 were recorded at city booths. Between 300 and 400 votes by declaration have yet to be counted. The returns came in expeditiously. The poll, closed at 6 p.m., and at 6.10 the first return was received by teleAggre gate voting in the whole area

phone from Welch’s farmhouse, on the West Tamaki Road. It was followed five minutes later by results from Victoria Hall, Rosebank Road, Avondale, and the Gaunt Street tram depot. The returning officer, Mr. W. St. John Clarke, announced the result of the poll at 8.30. He had with him a staff which handled the mass of returns with great expedition. Five additional automatic telephones had been installed in the office of the manager. Mr. A. B. Ford, and these permitted of rapid communication with the 75 booths. With characteristic promptitude, Mr. P. F. Notley, returning officer for Auckland City, supplied details to transport headquarters after his army had rushed columns of figures to the Town Hall. The city showed less inclination to vote for the £526,600 proposal than for the smaller alternative one. At the Town Hall 306 votes were recorded against the major proposal out of a total of 1,024. whereas the smaller issue drew only 234 negative votes. The trend was even more noticeable at the Chamber of Commerce, where 1,132 people voted for the smaller proposal and 959 for the larger. The most positive decisions were recorded at the Gaunt Street tramway depot, where 123 votes were given in favour and only 12 against, and at the corner of Dominion Road and Halesowen Avenue, Mount Eden, where the voting on proposal No. 2 was 109 to 2. Avondale, which has been left out of the present 'tram extensions programme, voted in their favour by 430 votes to 141, nearly as definite a vote as that at Point Chevalier, the first extension on the list, where the voting was 552 to 150. Dominion Road, which is also to receive immediate, benefit, voted 562 to 130, nearly a seven to one majority, and Remuera, where extensions will probably be commenced next February, 607 to 242. controlled by the hoard is as follows: