KELBURN TRAM PURCHASE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 6

KELBURN TRAM PURCHASE

The City Council completed its negotiations for the purchase of the Kelburn Tramway in October. Within a fortnight ratepayers are to be asked to vote upon the acceptance or rejection of the agreement. Yet they have not so far been informed fully of the obligations which acceptance implies. At one time it was proposed to submit a series of issues, so that the ratepayers might say whether they disapproved of the purchase wholly, or approved it as a simple purchase or as part of a bigger transport scheme. It, was found, however, that the law did not permit this course,' and that the voting-paper must provide for decision of a simple purchase issue. That discovery made it imperative that the Council should acquaint the ratepayers clearly with \ the course which it proposed to follow (1) if the bargain were confirmed; (2) if it were rejected. The Council cannot bind its successors in office to any policy, but by formulating plans it may afford a basis for decision more reasonable than is afforded by the mere ballot-paper. The long and inexplicable delay in furnishing definite information rather suggests that the Council made its bargain precipitately, and agreed to buy the tramway without considering fully what it would do with it. Ratepayers, we venture to say, will not be so hasty, and the Council, in justification of its own action, must make its plans known at once. The statement made should set out: (1) The intention of the Council as to development and extension if the purchase is approved ; (2) cost and capacity of such development and extension; (3) plans for improved access to the western suburbs if the Kelburn tram is not purchased; (4) cost of such plans. The statement should be made at once, for the ratepayers are being allowed only a few days to make up their minds. The Council has had months.