RATE VALUATIONS ARE ALTERED BY ASSESSMENT COURT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18013, 25 November 1926, Page 7

RATE VALUATIONS ARE ALTERED BY ASSESSMENT COURT.

MANY RATEPAYERS OBJECT TO AMOUNTS SET ON PROPERTIES. The Assessment Court, presided over by Mr J. G. L. Hewitt, S.M., sat this morning in the Chamber of Commerce, to deal with rate protests from the Heatheote County Council. Mr W. Cunningham appeared as for the Government and Mr S. C. Thompson represented the ratepayers. Herbert Frederick Bicker ton, a maker of explosives, objected, to the valuation placed on three acres of land and a house belonging to him. The land had been valued at £I4OO and the house at £SOO. He owned that land, he said, because he was obliged to have that much space around his factory. He also objected to the valuation of another section at £420. In both cases the objection was upheld, the value of the first section being reduced from £I4OO to £1315, and the second from £420 to £335. James Doughty Sprosen objected to the valuations on five of his sections, £325, £270, £245, £l5O and £1125. The first four valuations were sustained, and the last was reduced to £IOBS. Harold Seppings Mitchell, the owner of one section, valued at £9OO, had his bbjection upheld, the valuation being reduced to £BBO. A pretest, lodged by Mrs Mary Ann Lawson, against the £7OO valuation on her twenty acres of land at Bexley, was upheld, the valuation being reduced to £6lO. Richard Charles Carter made a plea for the reduction of the valuation on his fifty acre property at M’Gregor s Road. The valuation was £27od. After a long discussion the Court reduced the valuation to £2475. An objection lodged by George Mapson, a milkman, resulted in the capital valuation of his property being reduced from £920 to £770.