RATING ON THE UNIMPROVED VALUE.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13332, 26 January 1909, Page 9

RATING ON THE UNIMPROVED VALUE.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THIS PRESS. " Sir, —Can you put the ratepayers of New Brighton out of a quandary? Years before the rating on the unimproved value was adopted here, we borrowed atdifferent times £8000 and £7000, and in the official paper tbe local authority advertised the prospectus of the proposed loan area in which to be spent, etc., also the rate that would be struck, staging that the maximum would he one penny on the capital value, or its equivalent, on the annual rental. This year, for the first time, we have rating on the unimproved values, and the Council has brought all the loans under the unimproved values also, which means that the loan interest on vacant sections has been raised 500 per cent. We are quite aware that the Council has the power to raise the general rate on the unimproved values, but once a poll has been taken and money borrowed, and the rate fixed, can the Council raise the loan rate as it pleases? I enclose toy loan rate for your perusal. For years my loan rate was about 10s; this year it ia over £4. —Yonrs. etc., SYNDICATE.