County To Apply For £116,000 Loan

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 55, 15 July 1965, Page 2

County To Apply For

£116,000 Loan

An application to the Local Bodies Loans Board for permission to raise a loan of £116,000 for the Gradwell Block- Wharewaka Point water supply is to be made by Taupo County Council. The council proposes to strike a security rate of 1.35d. in the £ on the capital value of rateable property in the area.

The council advertised its intention to make the application and invited objections. Twelve residents objected to the proposal and these objections will be forward•ed with the application to the board. The council also received a letter from the

Taupo Borough Council setting out its position in the matter. Though not opposed to the principle of supplying water to the area, the borough said it had some observations to make. At present, said the borough couneiTs letter, the water rate in the borough was between £4 and £5 as against £14/10/- proposed for the county's scheme in the Gradwell Block. It was reasonable to assume that if one authority distributed the water, the cost could be more eqnitably spread. The matter could well be held up until the review of boundaries had been dealt with. It would also be reasonable to wait until the Government's intentions on the' proposed water regulation amendments were made clear. The county engineer, Mr B. Burton, said that development was going on apace. People in the area were spending large capital sums on putting down bores. "We should not delay any longer," he added. At this stage, council went into committee to hear further details from the engineer. On resnmption of open meeting, the engineer subm'tted a report drawn up , after discussion with the assistant borough engineer* Mr J. Minchingtoii, ard given in detail to him prior to Tuesday's meeting.

® In it Mr Burton said the borough water supply could not be extended to serve Wharewaka Point and could not give ad-equate fire-fighting requirements even as far as Te Hepera Street. ® The council had been consulted on the scheme both before and during design. ® The Tauhara water supply had been designed to give adequate out not overgenerous supply of water to the area. Since the borough reticulation could not be extended, the cost of the scheme could not be reduced. • Should the borough supply the area with water it could only reduce the costs by spreading the load over the borough ratepayers or drawing on reserves created by them. • Part of the borough could be served from the county's Tauhara water suppiy. ® In view of this the council could approach the borough to aseertain if it wished to draw water from the scheme. • There appeared no reason why the two schemes could not be integrated or serve separate areas not necessarily the present t-er-ritorial boundaries. Cr U. R. MacDonald said he took strong exception to the objection from the borough because "they have used it to play poTitics with in the question of boundary chauges between the county and the borough." There should at least have been strong encinee"ing reason for the borough's objections, he said. "I don't think this is conducive to good local body sdministration." The rouncil d-euded to make the application to the loans board.