Catchment Subsidies

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30768, 4 June 1965, Page 7

Catchment Subsidies

•‘The Press” Special Service i MASTERTON, June 3. Both the North Canterbury and South Canterbury Catchment Boards are concerned with the present rate of subsidies being given to local catchment board works by the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council. Remits were presented by both boards 'at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Catchment Authorities Association. In asking that in areas where capital works of national interest have not the rating potential sufficient to finance the local share, special consideration should be given by the Soil Conser-

vation and Rivers Control I Council to individual cases so rates of subsidy greater than normal could be paid. The North Canterbury board said they had investigated several proposals for major schemes, essential to the protection and preservation of good farm land, only to find that the local share of cost, on the present basis of subsidy, was beyond the capacity of the rating area. Speaking for the board, Mr W. R. Holmes said other essential works in steep foothill country had been the subject of preliminary investigation by the board, but had been deferred because it was apparent the local share of cost was more than the land could stand. “The ratepayers want these schemes if they can get them at a reasonable cost, and it is in the interests of the country that such schemes should proceed,” he said.

He urged that all boards should support the remit if they did not want to be continually frustrated. The South Canterbury board wants the council to increase the basic rate of subsidy for river control schemes where potential rating revenue is insufficient to meet the local share of cost. In its remit, the board said most rivers which were supported by economic rating areas had control schemes in hand. As time went on, each district would be left with the problems associated with the more “difficult” areas from a financial point of view. Such rivers, the board felt, required a greater rate of subsidy than at present to enable an economic scheme to proceed. Both remits were passed by the association and will be placed before the 1 soil council.