Ratepayers may force poll on sewerage loan

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 2

Ratepayers may force poll on sewerage loan

. Kaikoura’s $1.3 million sewerage scheme could be stopped by ratepayers before it is completed.

Ratepayers will hold a meeting at the Lifeboat Institute Hall this evening in an effort to force a poll to be taken on the raising of the second part of a $900,000 loan by the Kaikoura County Council. The support of 15 per cent of the ratepayers is needed to force a poll. Mr A. D. Kerr, a member of the Kaikoura Ratepayers’ Association living in Christchurch, said that ratepayers were concerned about the large amount of money they would be committed to by the loan.

If a poll is taken the ratepayers’ association hopes to challenge the council to produce figures showing that it will not be overcommitting the ratepayers.

A similar attempt to force a poll was made in 1978 when the council advertised its intention to raise a loan for the first $200,000. The association was only a few names short of the 15 per cent needed. Most residents in Kaikoura now use septic tanks and about 80 per cent of these work effectively, according to Mr Kerr.

I The tanks that do not [work to standard are in the iolder part of' Kaikoura arid built over a limestone rock base which does not allow for the necessary seepage, he said. The first $200,000 received Loans Board sanction in August, 1978, so that the contract for the first stage could be let and work started.

An oxidation pond, rising main, and a short stretch of reticulation are already under construction.

The second-stage loan of $250,000 will be used to buy all the materials for the scheme. The rest of the money will be raised later; The council’s estimates for the scheme have been approved by the Ministry of Works and Development and the Health Department. If ratepayers stopped the scheme the community would be faced with meeting, the loan charges on the first $200,000.

“If it was stopped, I suspect that the Health Department would put a requisition on the council to finish the scheme,” said the County Clerk (Mr D. Absalom). The scheme will, be rated on capital value ;and ' will cost ratepavers $5.10 for each $lOOO in capital- value for the next 30 years.;?.