THE FIRE BRIGADES ACT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8431, 1 May 1907, Page 5

THE FIRE BRIGADES ACT.

AN ALLEGED DEFECT ENQUIRED INTO.

Recently the Lower Hutt Borough Council erected a temporary fire brigade station, and fitted ii up in the centre of its block of land fronting the main road. The council had decided to take a poll last Friday week on the question of converting the borough into a fire district under the new Act, but discovered that a certain provision of the Act (section 31 would have a very detrimental effect, inasmuch as it was held'by the council and its solicitor that on the creation of a fire district all lands and buildings occupied by a brigade became vested in the board, which has to pay to the local authority a rental of 4£ per cent., on the capital value of all land and buildings so vested in the board. This would have been a serious matter for the council, as the land in question was worth anything up to £2,500. Accordingly the poll was indefinitely postponed. It was statedthat a number of other local bodies were in a similar position, and that the point was one of considerable importance. In an interview with a representative of the Post, yesterday, the Hon. Dr. Findlay, under whose department the adminstration of the Act comes, stated that he did not propose to discuss the view of the law taken by the Lower Hutt authorities, except in so far as it applied to local bodies throughout the colony. "I have," he said, "considered the section of the Act referred to, and I do not think it admits of the meaning attributed to it by the Mayor of Lower Hutt. I admit that the section is badly worded, but I don't think it can be construed so as to vest in a fire board any greater interest than is vested in a lire brigade. It is clearly not intended to transfer the fee simple, for the section provides for a rental to be paid to 'owners of lands,' nor can it be, in my opinion, the intention of the Act to give a board a lease-in-perpetuity. I think the Act does nothing more than effect a transfer from the brigade to the board of the brigade estate, and its interest )in the lands occupied by it. If the brigade is a mere tenant at the will of the borough council, there is nothing in the Act which prevents the council from determining the tenancy at any time, notwithstanding the creation of a fire board."

CABLE NEWS.

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