CITY WORKS PROGRAMME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22183, 9 August 1935, Page 10

CITY WORKS PROGRAMME

The programme of works which has been before the City Council since its previous meeting was advanced another stage last night. The Finance Committee is preparing details for the Local Government Loans Board, as a preliminary to asking that the necessary loans be sanctioned. Yet it remains very difficult for the ratepayer, who is considerably concerned, to form any definite opinion about the proposition as a whole. Expenditure to the extent of £729.200, or with the hoped-for subsidy, £834,400, is at stake, but many of the individual proposals are so vague as to be almost without meaning. As an example of inconclusiveness, an item of £IOO.OOO for a fine arts block is included, yet only this week a hopeless deadlock was reached in negotiations for the site which has always been regarded as essential to the scheme ; and only the most tentative suggestion of seeking another 'site has appeared so far. In response to a little criticism of the programme, the Mayor said the unemployment question was not allimportant ; many of the works listed were urgently needed. That may bo so, but the public has little data from which to make any distinctions between the item's. Common sense may help to suggest where the greatest importance lies, even in the list as it has been made public. Still, a better indication of the relative urgency of the works is not an unreasonable demand from those who will be most affected if the council goes ahead with proposals which are shown to cost some threequarters of a million, and might easily cost a million if all were put in hand.