OTAGO POWER SCHEME

Evening Star, Issue 18256, 21 April 1923, Page 13

OTAGO POWER SCHEME

BOUNDARIES AGREED TO. The representatives of the Otago Expansion League who, along with the engineer of the Otago Electrification Committee (Mr A. P. Aldridge), waited upon the Chief Government Electrical Engineer (Mr L. Birks) in Wellington last week, obtained his assent to the proposed boundaries of the scheme for this province. On Thursday the “ boundaries committee ” set up by the conference at Milton last month met in Dunedin, and the position now is that the scheme for the approval of the ratepayers is substantially that of which full details have already appeared in these columns. The area embraced by the scheme totals approximately 385 square miles—2so in the southern and 135 in the northern area. The main idea behind the arrangement of the boundaries was to include those parts that could bo supplied almost immediately. If, it Is pointed out, a lot of the outlying districts had been included, such as that district between the Main South road and the sea coast, the settlers there would have had a very poor chance of getting the power for a considerable time, while, in the event of the scheme not proving selfsupporting, they would have been liable to be rated. The committee’s point in regard to the centres of Lawrence, Middlemarch, and Owaka, is that to reach them a good deal of unproductive country (from the point of view of revenue) would have to be covered. Being one of the latest boards, the Otago Board, should it come into existence, will have the experience of other districts to guide it. Mr Birks was quite agreeable to leaving Dunedin city out of the scheme, and limits of the city’s supply area were suggested—south of the Chain Hills and north of the Port Chalmers transmission line. The petition praying for the constitution of a power board area will be circulated next month.