IMPROVEMENT OF FOOTWAYS

Evening Star, Issue 21381, 7 April 1933, Page 2

IMPROVEMENT OF FOOTWAYS

LOCAL BODIES' POWERS (Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April' 6. In the case of the Palmerston North City Council v. Waghorn and Wrightman the Full Court this afternoon heard argument on an originating summons requiring an interpretation of the section of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1920, which empowers the council to recover as a rate an amount up to half the cost of permanent improvements of footways, channels, etc., from the owners "of frontages adjoining the improvements. Action was taken in the Magistrate’s Court by the council to recover from the defendants the amount due for _ improvements to pathways which their land adjoined. As there were a number of actions, the magistrate asked for an authoritative decision. The summons also asked whether the owner of land and buildings fronting a footpath was liable for the full halfcost of construction when the cost had already been paid for out of unemployment moneys. Mr J. O’Shea represented the plaintiff and Mr M. H. Oram the defendants. 1 : . ■ '

Argument was. submitted by Mr P’Shea; tc show that, the charge was a ■statutory debt which could he claimed without reference to the Hating Act, and therefore the council was allowed a period of twenty years to make the claim. Ho submitted, also, that whether the council was paid out of unemployment moneys or not did not affect its statutory rights to half the cost of construction. Mr Oram contended that the money must be sued for as a rate, and as a period of three years had elapsed since the moneys became owing, they could not now he recovered. The court adjourned.