Advisory Committees Proposed For Work Of Catchment Boards

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 October 1948, Page 6

Advisory Committees Proposed For Work Of Catchment Boards

PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Last Night (PA).—The appointment of advisory or technical committees to advue the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council on matters referred to them by the council is provided for in the Soil Conservation and Rivers Con. trol Amendment Pill introduced and read for the first time in the House of Representatives tonight. The Minister of Works (Mr. Semple) said the Bill had been asked for by the council and various catchment boards. The Minister said the bill had been found necessary as a result of experience by the council and boards in the administration of the principal Act. The Bill did not interfere with the main Act, but simply continued the machinery clauses deemed necessary as the result of experience. This was a new department and it yvas only natural to assume that, in the process of attempting to administer the legislation, some amendments would be found necessary.

A new prevision authorises a catchment board to carry out works for the special benefit of a particular portion of a catchment district and to strike a special rate over the area concerned. This area classification of the lands therein and the proportion in which the rate is to be imposed may be done by written agreement with the landowners concerned.

Schemes of work for the preventing or minimising of damage by floods or erosion may be prepared for part of a district by catchment boards and approved by the Minister and council.