Catchment Board payments delayed

Press, 8 November 1986, Page 8

Catchment Board payments delayed

The North Canterbury Catchment Board is incurring unnecessary costs because some local authorities are delaying paying the board’s share of rates revenue, according to the board’s secretary, Mr Brian Mairs. Local authorities act as the collecting agencies for the board’s rates.

The delays involved about a third of the board’s rates revenue, said Mr Mairs at yesterday’s administration committee meeting. “I am talking about local authorities other than the Christchurch City Council, the Waimairi District Council, and the Paparua District Council, which pay the board its rates share regularly,” he said.

“The delays with the rest of our rates revenue dtfeans that we are sometimes having to incur ex-

pensive overdraft interest. "Often when I approach the local authorities about the payments, they say they will get on to it, but sometimes the delays continue.

“Basically the local bodies are trying to sit on the money for as long as possible to help their own cash-flow situations.”

A new requirement for all territorial authorities to advise the Government of rate amounts collected for GST return purposes could help the board with attempts to be paid the rates share on time, Mr Mairs said.

“This requirement will give us better leverage to find out what proportion of our rates has been collected from ratepayers by the local bodies over each period of the year. We can then ask the local bodies why that money is not in our bank account”

Mr Mairs said that the board was a regular payer of its bills and would like the local authorities to match this. Future changes The board can expect to see major structural changes to the agencies it deals with in the next three months, according to the chairman, Mr Richard Johnson. “Within the moves to restructure Government departments there is a bid to establish a national agriculture and land protection authority,” he told the board. “I believe there will be a conference to discuss this in the New Year.”

Another proposal under national consideration was a organisation to provide pest noxious ween control and soil con-

servation services, Mr Johnson said. “Soil conservation is a major function of the board and taking this away from our other water-management function would not be in the public interest.” Like several Government departments, the catchment boards would also soon have to face rationalisation, Mr Johnson said. “Catchment authorities will need to discuss the possibility of sharing some of their structural organisation and functions in future.” Mclntosh’s Drain More water can be dischaged into Mclntosh’s Drain at Woodend if the drain is cleaned and maintained as far downstream as Kairal* Beach Road, accordingto, a

board decision yesterday. It was endorsing the recommendations of a special tribunal of the board which recently heard an application for a water right in line with a proposal residented subdivision at Woodend. The applicant, Mr D. H. James, has applied to discharge up to 485 cubic metres of stormwater each day at a maximum rate of 135 litres a second into the drain. This water would come from his proposal 2.59 ha subdivision between Gladstone Road and Petries Road, a 13 per cent increase on the area already developed within that catchment

Mclntosh’s Drain serves as a B.skm-long stormwater outfall for the rural land between Woodend and the Waimakariri

River, east of State highway 1.

The board maintains the drain between Kairaki Beach Road and its outlet at the Kaiapoi River, while the Rangiora District Council is responsible for the rest of the drain. The board endorsed the tribunal’s view that objections to the water right application were covered by the conditions laid down in granting the right. One condition calls for Mclntosh’s Drain to be adequately cleaned and maintained to the board’s satisfaction (as to bed grade) from its source to Kairaki Beach Road. The other conditions are that the Rangiora District Council first grants scheme plan approval for the subdivision and the right must be vested with the when the subdivision is approved.