BIG LOAN COMING

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 207, 29 May 1936, Page 10

BIG LOAN COMING

Wellington Stormwater and Sewage Mains OTHER WORKS IN PROSPECT Ratepayers of Wellington may not relish it, but there is in preparation the schedule of a big loan for various City Council works, more or less urgent, which will be submitted for approval, probably in the spring of the present year. The chief expenditure contemplated will be in the direction of stormwater and sewage mains, two dtpart merits of essential city services which have been sadly neglected for the past decade, and which, in view of the city’s growth (Wellington has increased in population more than any of the other centres during the last ten years) must be attended to. This work is not one which can be accomplished in a few months. It means years of arduous work, and a great deal of expense. Still, this sort of thing has to be faced by the ratepayers in the near future, and to that end a great deal of office and field work is now being done by the city engineer’s department. What the amount of the loan under these headings will be cannot be stated here, but it will probably run into six figures, while the construction work will run into years. At the same time some of the committees of the council are putting forward claims for loan moneys to expend on works which may or may not be deemed essential. There is said to be quite a long list of these works being considered by the committees interested. Of course, these works have first of all to be approved by the council, after being recommended by the committees concerned, then they have to be submitted to the Government Loans Board for approval, and after that have to run the 1 gauntlet of the ratepayers’ approval at a loan poll. With the expenditure from loan money overshadowed by the stormwater and sewage demands, other proposals will probably be considered severely on their merits.