“CAUSE FOR COMPLAINTS”

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 7

“CAUSE FOR COMPLAINTS”

Six Consumers In Ashburton Six of the Ashburton Electric Power Board’s consumers, the position of whose supply of electricity he had been asked to investigate, had a legitimate cause for complaint when their case was viewed from the national position of supply to comparable users, Mr W. H. Gregory, former district electrical engineer of the Electricity Department, Christchurch, told the Commission of Inquiry into the Distribution of Electricity yesterday. The six cbnsumers were all light or medium industrial users of electrical supply, said Mr Gregory. A comparison with other supply authorities charges showed that in the first quarter of 1959, in which the Victory Lime Company had been charged £505 5s by the Ashburton Electrical Power Board, it would have been charged £267 10s by the Southland Electric Power Board, or £234 16s by the Springs-Ellesmere Electric Power Board if it had been in any of those authorities’ areas. “The board, in assessing its charges to these users has ignored, or at any rate failed fully to appreciate the characteristics of the various consumers’ loads,” said Mr Gregory. “They are being charged at a rate which is unfair to them and greatly inconsistent with the authorities elsewhere in the country.” The six consumers on whose behalf Mr Gregory made his submissions were the Cavendish Lime Company, Ltd., Mount Somers; Victory Lime, Ltd., Mount Somers; and the Canterbury Roller Flourmills, Crum Brothers, Ltd. (brick manufacturers), Burnett Motors, Ltd., and Lynns Hardware and Joinery, Ltd., all of Ashburton.