New Brighton.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19676, 20 July 1929, Page 14

New Brighton.

By request of the New Brighton Borough Council the. Christchurch Drainage Board at its meeting this week agreed .to furnish an estimate of the cost of a scheme for sewering the borough. If it may be assumed from this that the New Brighton Council have in contemplation a genuine plan and purpose to proceed with the project, the news will give a good deal of satisfaction to Christchurch as well as New Brighton residents. It has always been anomalous that so important a seaside borough should for so many years have lacked what is generally considered to be one of the most important of all municipal services, and it ia common knowledge that the

absence of that service has had a restraining influence on the progress and prosperity of the district, and particularly on the value of the borough as a residential resort. Other seaside and week-end townships not many miles distant from New Brighton, and much inferior to that borough in point of size and population, were glad years ago to assume the financial responsibilities required to provide a civilised sanitary service, and have since realised the importance of such a service in promoting rapid settlement and development. It cannot be imagined that the people of New Brighton are less concerned about the welfare of their borough than are the residents and property owners of other similar though smaller settlements, and it will cause surprise if they fail to do what is necessary now to overtake their neighbours. Municipal history in New Zealand reveals some curious eases in which civic luxuries have made a more successful appeal to the pockets of the ratepayers than such public necessities as high pressure water and modern sanitation, but nobody would like to think that the people of New Brighton would favour such an extraordinary inversion.