ELECTRICITY CHARGES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 539, 23 August 1932, Page 4

ELECTRICITY CHARGES.

Reduction to Commercial Users Proposed. That a discount of 10 per cent to commercial, power and water-heating consumers be made, and retrospectively to the date when the reduction was made to domestic consumers of electricity,; was urged by Councillor M. PL Lyohs at the meeting of the City Council last night. On the casting vote of the ; Mayor (Mr D. G. Sullivan, M.P.), the proposal was referred to the Electricity Committee for a report. Councillor Lyons said that domestic users paid £90,000 into the council's coffers, the commercial users £67,000 and the power users £43.000. The firstnamed, who used" 22,000,000 units annually, had had reductions amounting to 45 per cent, or £17,500, over the last five years; the commercial men, using 0,500,000 units, and the power users of 11,000,000 units, together had had reductions of only 13.5 per cent, representing £SBOO. The speaker did not know whether the council had a definite want of sympathy with the commercial people, who had had scant treatment in the past. Councillor A. E. Armstrong supported Councillor Lyons’s proposal on the grounds that all sections of the consumers should be treated alike, and that commercial users should be assisted in keeping their staffs employed. Councillor F. T. Evans moved an amendment that the question be referred to the committee for a report, lie said that the Department might have to pay considerably more for current in the future. Conservation of the Department’s funds was necessary. The committee had decided against Councillor Lyons’s proposal. Councillor Evans's amendment was carried on the casting vote of the Mayor. ______