Critical Councillor

Hutt News, Volume 19, Issue 12, 22 August 1945, Page 5

Critical Councillor

INSPECTOR'S DUTIES QUESTIONED AFFECT ON CITY S RATES Arguing that the cost of maintaining inspectors to supervise the Traffic and Building Departments of the Lower Hutt City Council should not be borne by the ratepayers generally, but paid for by those people who benefitted by or necessitated the formation of such departments, Cr. F. Lonsdale raised a number of points in this connection at the last meeting of the Council. "Rates must be kept within the bounds of the people's capacity to pay them" said Cr. Lonsdale, "and we as a council are going to suffer a lot of criticism due to the recent raising of the rates and we should be in a position to answer such criticism. We should be able to justify every penny of expenditure we make on the ratepayers' behalf and there are one or two' items of expenditure that I ! am not happy about. In the first place I want to refer to the cost of maintaining our Building Inspector's Department.- In this connection 1 have been going into some comparative figures and find that the fees received by this council for inspections of buildings and sanitation, etc, amount to less than 7/8 per cent of the cost of a house. Now an architect's fees amount to 6 per cent of the totai cost of job and what I wsnt to know is whether our council inspectors are doing the inspections that the architect is paid to "do ? In short, is the council doing the work and the ratepayers paying for the work that the architects are supposed to doing? I contend that we should receive in return for these inspections an amount that would pay us for them.

On the Traffic side too, our ratepayers should not be called upon to pay for something they are not getting. For instance, much of the traffic inspectors' time is taken up by checking truck loads to see that carriers have not got a hundredweight. or so of overload on. I don't mind if we have six traffic inspectors, but I do object to the man who hasn't a car or truck being askea to pay for inspections of the man who has. Both the Traffic Department and the - Building Inspection Department should be self supporting." The Mayor, Mr. J. W. Andrews sa;i tha.: prevention was better than prosecution. He would not like to sfiti the council's inspectors turned ir.t; "pothunters" tryingto make revenue out of- fees and fines. Cr. H. V. Horlor thought Cr. Lonsdale most "reactionary." In regard, to drainage it was possible that the adequate inspection of a single drain could save the whole district from a possible epidemic. Surely that was something that the ratepayers as a whole could well be asked to contribute to.