LAND DRAINAGE SCHEME

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25092, 25 January 1947, Page 9

LAND DRAINAGE SCHEME

NORTH CANTERBURY PROPOSALS MR MACHIN REPLIES TO RANGIORA COUNCIL A reply to statements made by the Mayor (Mr C. W. Tyler) and Town Clerk (Mr J. M. Fraser), of Rangiora, at a public meeting held this week to consider borough rating for the North Canterbury Catchment Board’s land drainage and rivers control scheme between Oxford and the sea, was made by Mr W. Machin, chairman of the board, yesterday. “So the Mayor and Town Clerk of Rangiora claim that their prosperous little borough is not interested in the drainage for purposes of soil conservation of the 100,000 acres of land surrounding it. Rangiora, they say, will not benefit by this work and the borough will not be affected in any way. So they endeavour to persuade Rangiora ratepayers to ignore the scheme and not contribute anything to it,” he said. “I wonder what would happen to Rangiora if the farmers for miles round it did not sell any produce to the merchants there, nor do any commission business with them, nor purchase any goods from the flourishing businesses there? Even the lawyers in the borough would have a thin time if it were not for the farmers all round it. “Everybody knows that Rangiora is a busy little town serving the country. Look at the. traffic from the country on market day. The Mayor seems to regret the high value of an acre of land in the borough. A reduction of prosperity of the land surrounding Rangiora would soon diminish its valuable business and its values,” Mr Machin continued.

“The highly-organised opposition oy the council and lawyers in Rangiora to our scheme—which, by the by, we have discussed with them exhaustively several times, and answered every question on the subject they have put to us—is very short sighted from many points of view. Rangiora js vulnerable to flooding and vulnerable to fluctuations in the productivity of its countryside.

“When the Borough Council wrote to us pn September 4 last year and said it could pot agree to the scheme as it was not warranted, it seemed to us that Rangiora was neglecting the stability of the- bough on which it is sitting.” Mr Machin continued. “The Mayor, at this meeting, said that the Catchment Board’s estimates for work on the adjacent Ashley river would for the next year be nearly twice those or last. year, and the rate would be nearly double. This -statement is entirely incorrect. The Catchment Board has not started to formulate its estimates for next year, and I have no information which suggests that the estimates, or the rates, will be increased. We can understand some ratepayers being so short-sighted as to object to pay a comparatively small rate for large ultimate benefits: but on the merits of the scheme, without flogging it with unfounded arguments, the majority are undoubtedly in its favour, realising that it is only by increased pjoduction that the country and its small market towns can live and prosper.”