POWER' FOR NEW LYNN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18827, 30 September 1924, Page 6

POWER' FOR NEW LYNN.

The anxiety of the Auckland Power Board to supply customers in New Lynn seems to have prejudiced its judgment of the attitude maintained by the Minister for Public Works. Without the precaution of obtaining the sanction required by statute, the board has given certain undertakings to deliver power to individual customers beyond its boundaries, which, in that direction, are the western limits of Avondale borough. After repeated representations, Mr. Coates has modified his refusal 'to the extent of offering to sanction supply in bulk to the Waitemata Board. As that body's creation has been indefinitely delayed. by controversy, the irony of the concession was not lost on the board, but it does not seem to have appreciated the fact that Mr. Coates is standing fast for a principle that must be maintained if the distribution of State-generated electricity is to be successful. The observation by the chairman of the board that the Minister is "playing fast and loose with the whole thing" is an unwarranted criticism. Mr. Holdsworth and his colleagues seem to have forgotten that it was Mr. Coates who initiated the movement for a single power board, on broader lines than local opinion' was willing to accept; and that actually, if his advice "had been followed, there would not have been any question now about supplying New Lynn. Mr. Coates' original proposal, to the conference held in January, 1921, was that the board's district should include Avondale and New Lynn. Avondale joined the district in August, 1922, five months after the constitution of the board, but New Lynn withdrew. Now it refuses to join the proposed Waitemata Board. That, however, does not concern the Auckland Board, whose function, as it has been frequently reminded, is to reticulate its own area and supply its own constituents who have waited patiently for the service while the board has been wasting its time in giving undertakings and negotiating terms for the extension of its mains into neighbouring districts. The doubts and hesitation that have been expressed regarding the Waitemata project are merely a repetition of similar pessimistic opinions that accompanied the formation of the Auckland Board. They would subsidise, giving preference to practical activity, if the Auckland Board would support the Minister's policy and advise New Lynn and the North Shore that, since it cannot supply them,, they should set about the constitution of their Own board and accept the Minister's offer of power from Horahora.