CHIMNEY REPAIRS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 April 1943, Page 2

CHIMNEY REPAIRS

TRUST MAKING TWO PAYMENTS UNDER PROTEST. CHARGES CONSIDERED EXCESSIVE. A decision to pay the Masterton Borough Council a sum of £B7, after allowing for the 30 per cent reduction, for the cost of repairs to nine chimneys, as a result of earthquake damage, was made at last night's meeting of the Trust Lands Trust. It was decided to pay two of the nine accounts, however, under protest. The chairman, Mr H. P. Hugo, said that the Trust had received accounts totalling £125 for the nine chimneys, hat amount was now reduced to £B7. The thirty per cent reduction was most reasonable, but the prices charged for two single chimneys in Railway Road were, he said, exorbitant. Although a layman, he knew that charges of £32 and £3O for single chimneys were outrageous. Those amounts were the original charges, before the 30 per cent reduction was made. Mr J. Macfarlane Laing said the building committee agreed with the chairman. Mr J. A. Russell said that the work 'was easy to do as the chimneys were of the outside type. The charges were definitely excessive. Mr C. E. Grey: “They are all excessive.” / Mr ,A. Owen] Jones observed that although he was not a builder he knew that a charge of eight bags of cement for a single chimney was too much.