The Press MONDAY, MAY 10, 1976. Christchurch rates and works

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34149, 10 May 1976, Page 14

The Press MONDAY, MAY 10, 1976. Christchurch rates and works

The Christchurch City Council should please ratepayers if the increase in the general rate this year is no more than 15 per cent — about the same as the rate of inflation. The Mayor (Mr H. G. Hay) has said that this can be done and that the council has come very close to balancing its income and expenditure, an achievement which evaded this council’s predecessor.

To be sure, the council set out last year with an increase of more than 50 per cent in the general rate, an alarming figure, although the accumulated effects of inflation and of the large deficit left by the previous council could have been met in no other way if the city’s essential services were to be maintained.

Some progress has been made in the last year towards reducing the serious backlog of deferred street maintenance, and on improvement of necessary, but mundane council activities which benefit the day-to-day lives of Christchurch residents. Many of these routine activities were neglected by the previous council while its energies and resources were directed towards new undertakings. Although some ambitious reading projects have fallen well behind schedule, this is not necessarily a disadvantage. Christchurch still has no serious traffic problems: and the whole question of motorway development in the city needs the careful re-examination which delays have made possible. The freeze on local authority loans imposed by the Government in February has further delayed important works, including the Cashel Street mall, the New Brighton mall, and progress on building a new public library. Financial pressures continue to frustrate progress towards the library, the new art gallery, and the new civic adminstration centre, all of which have been recognised for years as pressing needs.

Some ratepayers may be relieved that they are still spared the additional financial burdens these buildings would impose. But all three buildings are needed urgently: they are not going to become cheaper to provide. Within the limits of the restraints imposed by the Government, the City Council, as it prepares its estimates this year, should ensure that an early start can be made at least on the library. Although modest rate increases are tolerable when they are used to provide enduring and necessary assets for the city, citizens may have to be content in difficult times with little more than the maintenance of familiar services and the most essential of new works.