HIGH POWER CHARGES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 10

HIGH POWER CHARGES

INDUSTRY HANDICAPPED

NEW WORK DISCOURAGED

The question of the relatively high charges for electric power for factories in both the Wellington city area and the Hutt Valley was discussed at a meeting of the general committee of the Wellington Manufacturers' Association last night. .The. secretary reported that he had made certain inquiries and had been in communication with the officers of the City Electricity Department, but the position was that pending a settlement of the dispute between the City Council and the Public Works Department regarding the new agreement as to the terms and conditions for the supply of bulk power by the Government to the city the whole question was open, and he had been unable to arrange for a conference on the subject. Speakers expressed the view that the position was serious in that it placed industry in the Wellington district under a distinct handicap and discouraged prospective industries from being established here. Specific evidence was cited in support of the latter point, the likelihood of an industry which would be a fairly heavy consumer of electric power being diverted to another centre, notwithstanding that in other respects the position of Wellington as a point of reception of materials an*d as a distributing point for manufactured goods offered advantages.

It was decided that, even though the position as between the City Corporation and the Public Works Department is not definite, the Corporation should be asked to receive a deputation representing the association and that a similar request should be made to the Hutt Valley Power Board.

On the wider question of electric power supply, the meeting gave support to a remit for the consideration of th? New Zealand Federation at its annual conference that an investisation should be made into the unsatisfactory position throughout the Dominion as a result of the multiplicity of power boards and supply authorities, with widely-varying rates and wiring regulations, making it extremely difficult for manufacturers to design equipment.