HOURS RESTRICTED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 35, 21 November 1939, Page 4

HOURS RESTRICTED.

USE OF HOSES IN GARDENS. SIN TO EIGHT, MORNING AND EVENING. Because the demand for water in Ashburton Borough has doubled in the last few weeks, the Council last evening decided to restrict the hours during which hoses may be used in gardens to two periods of two hours each, 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., each day. In his report to the Council, the Engineer-Inspector (Mr J. R. Richardson) referred to the increased demand for water lately and asked the Council to consider the imposition of restrictions.

Tho Mayor (Dr. G. I. Miller) said that the amount, of water pumped to the tower in July was about 300,000 gallons a day, but in the last week it had jumped to 600,000 gallons a day. He thought the hours for hosing should be reduced to two in the morning and two in the evening. Last year the hours had been divided, so that half the town watered on three days of the week and the other half on tho alternate days, but ho considered this arrangement had not been satisfactory, as people had not been able to find out where they were witli the days. Dr. J. Connor expressed the opinion that tho alternate days adopted last year should ho decided on again this year. The scliemo had been in operation for only a short period and people had not had a real chance to fit into it.

Mr E. Buchanan, on whose motion the hours mentioned above were eventually adopted, said the trouble lay with those people who would not play fairly and left their hoses running all night. When the water tower was emptied on two or three occasions last year it was always after 11 o’clock at night. The Mayor: It would pay the Council handsomely to put on an inspector and a few prosecutions would soon show the offenders-we mean business.

It was agreed that if the- position does not show satisfactory reactions in the next two weeks, the Council will appoint a water inspector at its next meeting. The Town Clerk fMr R. C. Major) said the pumping account for October was £6B 2s sd, and the November account would be somewhat higher.