POWER BOARD WINS CASE

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1933, Page 4

POWER BOARD WINS CASE

DECISION OF PRIVY COUNCIL NORTH TARANAKI ELECTRICITY. INGLEWOOD AND WAITARA SUPPLY NEW PLYMOUTH EXCEEDS RIGHTS. The New Plymouth Borough Council may not supply electricity to Inglewood and Waitara., according to a decision of the Privy Council, which, a Press Association cable from London reports, has dismissed the appeal of the municipality against the New Zealand Appeal Court’s judgment in favour of the Taranaki Power Board.

The question argued before the Appeal Court was whether, under section 282 (b) of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1920, the borough of New Plymouth had the right to supply electric power to the boroughs of Inglewood and Waitara on the grounds that they were “adjoining” districts to the borough of New Plymouth. With the object of preventing the council supplying current to the boroughs in question, the Taranaki Electric Power Board sought in the Supreme Court to establish that Inglewood and Waitara did not “adjoin” New Plymouth within the meaning of the section. Mr. Justice MacGregor, before whom the case was heard, gave judgment in favour of the borough of New Plymouth, and it was from this decision that the board, appealed. The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Herdman and Mr. Justice Kennedy heard the appeal last September and unanimously held that neither the borough of Inglewood nor the borough of Waitara was an “adjoining district,” to the New Plymouth borough within the meaning of the section, which reads as follows: “The council, having established, electric light works for the purpose of lighting the. streets and public places of the borough and to supply electricity to the inhabitants of the borough, may contract with the local authority of an adjoining district to supply electricity to such local authority upon such terms and conditions as may be mutually agreed upon." , _ The New Plymouth Borough Council since 1924 has been supplying electricity from its centre power station to the boroughs of Inglewood and Waitara under contracts with them respectively. Inglewood is about eight miles and Waitara about six miles from New Plymouth, the intervening land in each case being included within the district of one or more county councils _ Mr. Justice MacGregor held in the Supreme Court that accordingly neither Inglewood nor Waitara could °e said to be an immediately “adjoining” district to New Plymouth which, indeed, was completely surrounded on the landward side by the county of Taranaki. The Taranaki Electric Power Board asked the Court in effect to declare that the con* tinned supply of electricity by New Plymouth to Inglewood was beyond the power conferred on the New Plymouth borough by the Legislature in terms of section 282 (b). \ Mr. Justice MacGregor held, however, that each of the two boroughs of Inglewood and Waitara was an “adjoining district” to the New Plymouth borough within the meaning of the section. The Court of Appeal reversed Mr. Justice MacGregor’s finding and in its decision the Privy Council concurs. The borough council lodged £3OO as security for the vain appeal.