POWER SUPPLIED OUTSIDE CITY

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25554, 23 July 1948, Page 10

POWER SUPPLIED OUTSIDE CITY

The administration of electrical -supply by the council was not limited to the city, said Mr Hitchcock. It supplied electricity to the whole of the Waimairi County area and a part of Halsweil. The three small remaining areas, Riccarton, and two parts of Heathcote, were developing electrically as independent entities within the orbit of what should preferably be an overall electrical area, developed on the basis of a metropolitan layout. The same thing applied with somewhat less cogency to Lyttelton borough. The area was separated from Christchurch by the hills, and must in several respects be an independent area. However. rates and types and standards of construction could apply to the area.

If the council’s claim was successful parts of the Springs-Ellesmere Power Board’s industrial electrical area would come into the city, and there would be a problem of whether the area should be in the city electrically as well as geographically, and of the effect amalgamation would have on the power board’s load and operations.

Mr Hitchcock said that if it was determined that the electrical problem could not be confined to the metropolitan area he desired to reaffirm submissions made to the Parliamentary select committee on local body administration about three years ago. In his evidence to that committee, which he read to the commission, he stated that when North Island developments were first mooted, and the Power Board Act was passed, there was a somewhat nebulous proposal for a Canterbury Power Board. The proposal was not pressed at the time.

Power boards were formed all round the metropolitan area, he said, and the Public Works Department had reviewed the suggestion of a board extending from the Waimakariri river to the Rakaia river. Emphasis had been placed on the two uneco-

nomic boards—Malvern and Banks Peninsula—in the area. “There is an impression that combination with the city supply would magically redeem these exceedingly difficult areas,” he continued. “From the point of view of electrical supply they cannot be redeemed except by some recognition by the people within them of the difficulty, cost, and value of electrical supply in such areas. They, however, want Jerusalem rates in Dan and Beersheba.’’

A power board in the initial stages would have avoided the growth of self-contained sectional systems around that of the city, but the city’s system was developed extensively before the power boards were started. Difficult Areas

“Christchurch is the nearest city to the two most difficult power board developments in the Dominion. The Public Works Department has claimed that these areas should in some way benefit by the city electrical development. In what way and to what extent has never been clearly stated. There is almost an implication that the city has allowed them to get into their present difficulties. “One of the difficulties has been that these areas differ radically from the city in remoteness, extent, topography. and load characteristics, and consequently in the cost and value of electrical supply. Nevertheless, supply has always been viewed in these areas in terms of city retail rates. Economic differences so marked cannot easily be disregarded. Country commodities like cream, firewood. and crops, cannot overcome the economic necessity of bearing transport cost to a city market or port. No section of the community can be absolved from the effects of its own inherent characteristics.”

If his department was to be included in a power board having a greater area, the power board must acquire the city’s undertaking, or the possession of the undertaking must be spread compulsorily over a much extended ownership.