PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 41

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE.

The Public Works Committee of the City Council met on Monday. Present —Councillors Smith (in the chair), McGill, Anders-, n, Higginbottom, Lindsay, Myers and Willeston. Consideration of the supplementary estimates and the report of the Streets Committee was postponed. The report of the City Surveyor re tramlines, already published in the New Zealand Mail, was read. It had been before the Council previously, but was not disposed of. Mr Hall had sent in an estimate of <£sSl, but the City Surveyor found that this sum included contingent works which the Council was not liable for, the lessees being responsible under the maintenance clauses of the agreement. He estimated the cost of raising the line at <£4UO. exclusive of banking up to three feet outside of the line. Of this sum. the Council had been asked to pay half. There was a short discussion, during which Councillor McGill said that as things were going now, it was all in favour of the contractor. The Council raised the roads up to within a foot of the line, and the lessees had only then to raise the line. They were not maintaining the roadway on either side as they were supposed to do. Councillor Higginbottom said the position was a piost unsatisfactory one. and something definite should be arranged between the tramway people and the Council once and for all. He did not think, if the matter came to be sifted, that the Council was responsible for contribution towards raising the line. The City Engineer said that anything Mr Hall was doing now in connection with the roadways was entirely on his own responsibility.—The matter was eventually postponed until a fuller meeting. The request of the Wellington Working Men’s Club for permission to erect a small building in their side lane for the purpose of storing bicycles was refused. Mr J. Brown wrote asking that the footpaths in Holland street bo asphalted. The engineer reported that the cost would be <£4o. —To be brought up and considered in connection with the supplementary estimates. The Public Wox-ks Department, already refused further water connection re fire service for the General Post Office, wrote again on the subjeot.—Request declined. Mi*- R. Iveeno wrote stating that he had erected a house in Aro street, and was unable to connect with the drainage service underexisting conditions. —Drainage department to be asked to attend to matter .

Councillor Higginbottom enquired re removal of earth from Mr W. H. Herbert’s property, Daniel street to Owen street. He said the work was not done by contract, although the Council decreed that it should be.

The Town Clerk read the minute of a previous meeting on the subject. The clause of the Public Works Committee, as originaliy drafted, stipulated that the work should be contracted for, but, on Councillor Higginbottom’s own motion the clause was amended, and subsequently read “by contract or otherwise.”

Councillor Higginbottom disavowed havingaltered the motion to that effect. There was a mistake somewhere. He had noticed that the work was being carried out at a snail’s pace. The other day he observed fifteen minutes’ work being extended over threequarters of an hour He thought time-sheets should be brought into requisition in connection with Corporation works* Councillors McGill and Smith quite agreed with the last speaker in reference to the time taken ever works over which the Council had control. Some of the carts moved about half empty, and men did not seem to care what wo me they did so long as they filled in the day.—lbe matter then dropped. Mr j. Morris was granted two months in which to remove a condemned building in Taranaki street.

Mrs McCarthy complained of the action o£ the Council in shifting banking in Shannon street, to the detriment of her property. Her fence had fallen over, and the only access toiler place was by a sixteen foot .hand-rail. She asked the Council to alter the high, levelled footpath, erect a retaining wall, and. a fence on toil, at its own expense, or

would issue a writ. —No action taken

Half-a-dozen other matters were postponed until the next meeting of the Council.