NORTHCOTE BUSES

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 376, 18 March 1932, Page 4

NORTHCOTE BUSES

Proposal to Send Petition to Parliament. In the event of the licensing authority failing to give the residents of Northcote a suitable bus service, a petition will be presented to Parliament asking that the district be excluded from the tramway rating area. A decision to this effect was reached at a meeting of Northcote residents in the Waimairi Council Chambers, Papanui, last night. The chairman (Mr W. Sandford) said that the people of Northcote were not only lighting for their rights, but for the rights of all the people at present served by buses. The Rev Father Cullen said that of the whole tramway system there were only four paying lines, and it would be thought, that if the pruning knife had to be applied, it would not be to one of those lines. The Papanui line had always been a paying proposition and here the cut had been first made. The loss on the Northcote bus was set down at £IOOO, but to take away the bus meant at least £I3OO loss on the other sections of the line. Before the abolition of Northcote as a special rating area by the judgment of the Supreme Court, that part of Northcote was liable for its share in the total tramway debt as well as the £7OOO raised for the area. The district between Northcote and the Styx had but one liability—that of the £7OOO loan, but with the Supreme Court’s judgment it had taken over a part liability of over a million. The tramway therefore gained by the withdrawal yet it decried the action. The wrong done was that a property owner at Styx, now about two miles from the new tram terminus, had his property pledged for present and also for future loans. Something Better. Mr W. G. Chapman said he could give hopes that if the buses ceased to run something better would take their place. The Northcote people had been told that their service did not pay, but other buses were losing more. The Northcote bus lost £4OO, but on other servises the losses were: £476, £591, £497, £617 and £671. North Beach had a line that did not pay. The Tramway Board closed it for eighteen months. Then the strings were pulled. There was another election and the line opsned up again. The need of Papanui was therefore another election and another member. The only other way was to draw up a petition and fight the matter on the floor of the House. Something would have to be done.

The Tramway Board was talking of raising another loan and the Northcote people would get no service but more loan liability. On the motion of Mr G. Cresswell, it was decided that in the event of the licensing authority not giving the residents a suitable service, a petition be sent to Parliament to have the district excluded from the tramway rating area. The motion was carried unanimously.