Catchment Board Subsidy Totals £91,400 For Year

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27989, 8 June 1956, Page 13

Catchment Board Subsidy Totals £91,400 For Year

Subsidies totalling £f1.400 have been allocated to the North Canterbury Catchment Board tor the current year by the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council. This is £16,400 more than last year. Of the total. £16.400 from the Consolidated Fund is for flood repair works, and £75.000 from the Public Works Account is to help to finance river protection, drainage and soil conservation works.

Each year the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council allocates subsidies to catchment boards throughout the country after the boards have submitted preliminary details of the works they propose undertaking. The allocations are made primarily on the operations of boards in the preceding year. The council does not authorise actual payments, however, until detailed plans for works have been submitted and it is assured that the work is about to commence and that the local share of the finance is available.

The secretary of the North Canterbury Catchment Board, Mr W. W. Brough, said yesterday afternoon that a fairly big proportion. of the Public Works grant would be used on protection works on the north bank of the Waimakariri just below the Eyre well State forest.

This year the board proposes to spend £78.650 on the Waimakariri. Towards this expenditure it expects to receive £33,127 by way of subsidy. Of a total estimated expenditure of

£18,785 on the Ashley the component is expected to be £lo.3Bti Estimated expenditure m the Halswell river district for the year is £18.141 of which £9530 is expected to come trom subsidies. On the estimated expenditure is £9090. or which the board expects to receive £5280 in subsidy. Estimated expenditure on the Cust is placed at £5065, including a subsidy of £2900, and expenditure on Lake Ellesmere is expected to be £4275 with £2600 subsidy. 4 . The Public Works grant also includes a lump sum payment for genera 1 purposes such *as hydrologic work, soil conservation experimental work, and midget works. Money made available for midget works is to cover expenditure on small projects outside a rating district with the primary objective of allowing these works to be proceeded with before they develop into major tasks. Certain works which qualify for subsidies under the Public Works grant are carried out by other local bodies in the board’s district, but they make up only a fraction of the total subsidy expenditure. The initial proposals for such works must first be approved by the board, and the work wherf completed is subject to inspection and certification.

“While we prepare our estimates each year in advance as accurately as we can these estimates are sometimes upset by urgent flood repair works,” said Mr Brough.