BOWEN STREET TRAM

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 17, 21 January 1931, Page 8

BOWEN STREET TRAM

v (To the Editor.) Sir, —Having some little knowledge of the procedure for carrying out . public works by local bodies, and : presuming similar knowledge on the part of officers and heads of our local civicauthority, J am more_than a little surprised at soitfe of the particulars embodied in the general pronouncement by the Mayor as to the council's side of the proposal for carrying out the Bowen street tram, as published in your issue on Tuesday. Mr. Troup states that the council was entirely within its rights in providing as it did to set under way a necessary city work. Nobody denies the council's right to proceed "to set under way" any work which it ' considers necessary, but the Mayor seems to forget that the council does not always have the final say as to whether the work shall be carried out, especially if it is a tramway work; and the complaint of many ratepayers is that the council has shown many _ signs of its'desire to leave out of consideration the wishes of those who really possess the final say. With regard to tramway construction, the Tramways Act, 1908, provides that a local authority shall not commence anyl new tramway' work without securing an authorising order therefor, and that it shall not make application for such authorising order without the sanction of the ratepayers. Further, the method set out for ascertaining the. sanction of the ratepayers is to advertise its intention to ap* ply for such authorising order. So far, so good. Then the ratepayers coma into the picture. If they are too indifferent to sit up and take notice in the prescribed manner, then the council may assume that the ratepayers. have sanctioned the proposal, and go ahead to the next, step of applying for the authorising order after complying with many .other conditions required by the statute. ' But if 5 per cent, of the ratepayers within four weeks of the first publication of the council's advertisement notify the council that they object to the prosecution of the work; then the council must submit the question to 'a poll of the ratepayers, and carry such poll, or it can't get its authorising order, and that is the position the council is in at the present time, seeing that over 15 per cent, of the ratepayers have objected to the work being_undertaken. The question as to whether the council has the cash in hand to pay for the work, or requires to borrow it, does not enter into the question at all at this stage. The Mayor'B statement that there is no machinery which makes provision for taking a poll unless a loan is contemplated is therefore obviously totally inaccurate. .The observation that "the same thing has been done scores of times in the past" is* probably an exaggeration anyhow, but in any case times themselves may-be different now, and it therefore furnishes no legitimate precedent for expecting things to be allowed to slide in these strenuous times. The controlling authority in England for such Ipcal body works has stated recently that it has been found necessary to refuse sanction in some cases, notwithstanding the fact that the objects were for important purposes of public health or education. The Mayor states that the council had decided that the cost of this work should be met out of a sum of £40,000 which was owing to the Tramways Department by the Electricity Department. Even assuming that this debt can be paid, will the Mayor be prepared to give his personal guarantee that the proposed work will be completed within that sum? If not, where does the council propose to get .the balance from? Rates?—l am, etc., E. BOLD.