ARAPUNI POWER-LINES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 445, 29 August 1928, Page 13

ARAPUNI POWER-LINES

LAND TAKEN FOR ERECTION CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION Hearing was resumed in the Supreme Court this morning of the for £4 403 compensation by John Thomas Kay. farmer, Panmure. against the Public Works Department for land taken for the erection of power-lines from Arapuni. . , . Of two pieces of land taken claimant asked £325 an acre for one portion of two acres, two roods, ten perches, and the other of almost four acres he valued at £ 400 an acre. Mr. Justice Reed presided and associated with him were Messrs. J. Alexander and M. H. Wynyard, assessors for the department and the claimant respectively. Mr. Holmden appeared for Kay and Mr. Meredith for the department. . S. Trevor Dibble, surveyor, said he had cut up claimant’s property for closer settlement purposes. Taking of the land had deprived Kay of about eight sections. Otherwise the estate had not been materially affected. In the boom period about 1926 there would have been no difficulty in realising £3OO for fifth-acre sections. Witness regarded Kay’s claim as “essentially conservative.” Panmure district was included in the Auckland metropolitan area. % Cross-examined by Mr. Meredith, witness said he was a director of Silverton estate, Panmure. This was regarded as a particularly fine area. He had invested £ 500 in the managing company and bought three sections for £BOO. Since 1926 only eleven other sections had been sold, partly because the boom had collapsed and in consequence of delay in approval of the plans. It was commonly believed among land dealers that another wave of optimism was imminent. “Then you are dependent on waves of optimism to uriload these sections?” asked counsel. ‘That is so.” (Proceeding.!