LESS THAN SHARE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27043, 30 March 1949, Page 4

LESS THAN SHARE

EXPENDITURE ON, WORKS N.E. VALLEY COMPLAINT Year by year less money was being spent on public works in the city, stated Mr E. C. Stanton, president of the North-East Valley Householders and Ratepayers’ Association, at the protest meeting in the Valley Town Hall. At one time the percentage of revenue spent was one-third. Today it was less than one quarter. It was nearly as low as it was in the depths of the depression, he contended. The council did not intentionally cut down expenditure on the Valley but it should be honest and say. “We orefer to use our funds in some other way.” Computed on the amount of rates paid and the length of roads in the district, the Valley was entitled to considerably more than it received. So far as maintenance was concerned, in not one year had the full amount allocated been spent. On an average there was £SOO a year unused. That did not mean the council was saving it up. It was spent elsewhere. Of loan moneys of £IOO,OOO, and then another £IO,OOO, the Valley got its share for a while, and then expenditure dropped off. Rising costs had eaten up the money and still the Valley roads were unpaved and neglected, and yet ratepayers had voted for the sum on the understanding that these works would be carried out. The amount spent on new works in the Valley in the past six years averaged only 2$ per cent., he said, and so far as the contingency fund was concerned. the Valley’s share was only 1 j} cent. Not one penny of the petrol tax allocation of £BOOO from the Government had been spent in the Valley, Mr Stanton said, yet he could name 50 streets in the city which had had some of this money spent on them for paving. He knew it was supposed to be spent only on main roads or subsidiaries, but the term subsidiary appeared to be very elastic. Some £IO,OOO was spent on paving every year in Dunedin, and only in the past three years out of the last 30 or more had the Valley “broken its duck.”