ELECTRIC POWER

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24982, 17 September 1946, Page 3

ELECTRIC POWER

EXTENSION TO UPPER MT. PLEASANT SOUGHT

A deputation representing residents of Upper Mount Pleasant (Heathcote County) waited on Mr T. H. McCombs, M.P., recently with a request for his assistance in having electric light and power mains extended to their residential area.

The leader of the deputation (Mr H. J. Davey) said that residents had for some years endeavoured to interest some supply authority in the proposal. The former Sumner Borough Council, the Heathcote County Council, and the Municipal Electricity Department had been approached. Actually, he said, the responsibility was the Heathcote County’s, but the council had said It was not able to obtain poles and other material. The Municipal Electricity Department had similar difficulty, and had stated that the licence to reticulate the area belonged to the Heathcote County. Mr Davey submitted to Mr McCombs a list of the proposed connected loads, the maximum demand for which would be between 60 and 70 kilowatts. A deputation from the Mount Pleasant Burgesses* Association had waited on the City Council, and had been told that its requirements and the cost of the work would supply more than 200 homes in the city area; but at that particular time the necessary transformers and other material were not available, said Mr Davey. Without the permission of the Heathcote County, the Municipal Electricity Department could not undertake the work. He understood that the Public Works Department had been approached last July with a request that the upper Mount Pleasant reticulation licence should be transferred from the Heathcote County to the city’s licensed area, continued Mr Davey. The Minister of Works had been advised that the upper Mount Pleasant district was only seven miles from the city, yet rural properties with a much lesser density of population were being supplied. Mr Davey suggested that the line from Mount Pleasant to Lyttelton, erected during the war, be dismantled and used for the proposed extension, and the licence over the area be transferred to the City Council.

In his reply, Mr McCombs reviewed the negotiations which to his knowledge had taken place. It was quite true, he said, that the retail distribution of power could be undertaken by the Government, but an undertaking existed whereby the Government would not interfere with local supply authorities. On his return to Wellington, he added, he would make further inquiries and urge upon the Public Works Department the necessity for reaching some finality about the matter.