WADESTOWN TRAMS

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 75, 26 September 1916, Page 2

WADESTOWN TRAMS

-A RESIDENT'S REVIEW OF THE I CASE. With reference to the Wadestown tramway case, on whicii the Judges of the Court of Appeal delivered judgment yesterday In favour of the ratepayers against the City Council, a local resident familiar with the history of the suburb, furnishes the following . narrative of the dispute. from the ratepayers' '■ point of view:—Some ten years ago (he writes) Wadestown, then a- part "of Onslow Borough, decided to work for a tramway, and engaged the Wellington Engineer, Mr. Morton, to report on the various suggested routes. He decided emphatically in favour of the Main-road route. The year following Wadestown joined the city, one of the conditions being that tramway facilities be provided. Mr. Hislop then became Mayor, and he and Mr. Mortoi} adopted another route (previously rejected), which ran through the! Highland Park estate almost as far' us, Kaiwarra. They addressed a meeting at Wadestown with the object of getting this route adopted, but the meeting rejected it in favour of the Main-road route. The loan proposal submited had the reclamation of Saunders'-lane, at a cost of £12,000, tacked on to it, but despite this handicap, the ratepayers carried the proposed loan of £47,000. In a Court case Mrs. .Rhodes succeeded in getting a large part of her estate exempted, with the result that the rating area left was not sufficient to provide security for the loan, and the whole thing fell through. Then Dr. Newman became Mayor, and he got the present line pushed through. The construction of the line by the Engineer's department was, the writer alleges, unnecessarily costly, and was added to by spoil being deposited in a position whence it was washed down into the stores on the Hutt-road, which entailed compensation charges of £500 debited to the loan. In another case, where a small strip of land was required, the council bought the whole property for £2500, and after taking the required strip and spending £150 on erecting a cement wall, resold it to the original owner for £1750. When the line was opened/the cars were run to an inconvenient terminus, and three years' agitation was entailed before the line was linked np with the city system. Administration charges, it is asserted, are heavy and inequitable, and depreciation is charged on £20,000 worth of earthworks whicii do not depreciate. While "the Wadestown line has been treated- as a separate unit for the heavy charges, it is believed that the depreciation fund has-been pooled with the general city funds. A carefully-prepared statement of grievances sent to the City Council last year by'the local Ratepayers' Association failed to elicit the courtesy of a reply, and the ratepayers' only resource was to appeal to the Courts.

Since legal proceedings were Instituted a period of nearly two years -has elapsed, during which time, the ratepayers, acting, under the advice of the local Municipal Electors' Association, have paid the tramway rate under' protest. The further action of the council in regard to the matter will lie looked for with interest.