WELLINGTON LOANS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 217, 11 June 1935, Page 9

WELLINGTON LOANS

Order-In-Council To Be Issued This Week STREET WORKS TO BEGIN Consulted, yesterday as to the position respecting the two Wellington City Council loans, £100,090 for drainage and street works and £60,000 for a new Central Library, the Mayor, Mr. TC. A. Hislop, said that, a formal process had to be gone through before a municipal loan was actually raised. Application had first to be made to the Government for an Order-in-Council sanctioning the raising of the loan, and not until that order was received could the work be started. Once that formality was complied with the council could proceed to raise the loan. Mr. Hislop stated that there would be no difficulty about that. Au assurance was given that the Order-in-Council for the larger loan would be issued this week, and as soon as that happened a start would be made with some of the minor works included. in the loan schedule. So far the plans of the new stormwater drain which is to be laid from Adelaide Road, down Kent Terrace, to the sea, are not completed. Last winter there was provided ample proof that the existing storm-water drain was simply not large enough to carry off the water during a phenomenal downpour of rain. It may have been quite efficient in the days when half the district was open land, capable of great soakage, but now iti is wholly built upon, and most people have paved or asphalted their paths and back yards, so that the runoff is very quick indeed, and it takes a drain of larger capacity to receive it all without coming up at the manholes or in other vulnerable places, as it did . on both sides of the Basin Reserve last winter.

In response to an inquiry made yesterday it was stated that the line of the new drain had not yet been fixed —it was not yet decided whether it would go through the Basin Reserve or round it. If it is decided to go through the Basin Reserve, it will mean that this playing area will be put out of commission for some months, as the construction of a large drain of reinforced concrete is hardly a job that can bo rushed- The alternatives are to take it through the reserve about on a line with the footpath on that side of the ground, or to lay it under the woodblocks of Dufferin Street. The existing drain runs through the reserve. Mr. Hislop said yesterday that there would be no need to wait for the actual raising of this loan before work is started. That could be gone on with as soon as the Order-iri-Council is Issued. The first works to be financied out of the loan would probably be street works. He had been given to understand that the spending of the loan would mean the employment of about a hundred men for from two to three years, outside the permanent staff of the city engineer, but that number could not be taken on at once, but gradually as the works develop.