MUNICIPAL GASWORKS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2173, 24 April 1908, Page 2

MUNICIPAL GASWORKS.

SUCCESS AT LYTTELTON. A PROFITABLE YEAR. (Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, April 23. • The financial year which ended on March 31st- was a successful one for the Lyttelton municipal gasworks. The net profit for tho year is £894, a few pounds more than the previous year’s profit, and the result is regarded as entirely satisfactory. A report presented to tho Lyttelton Borough Council last evening elated that, to sum up in a concise form tho advantages that had accrued to the corporation by the municipalisation of the works, it ought to he said that during five years and four months of civic control, the undertaking had paid its wav, and, in addition, had produced a sufficient surplus to vote £lllO to the sinking fund account, £2324 18s 9d for extension of works, and to give the consumers rebates by way of reductions in tho price of gas equal to almost £IOOO per-year, and at the same time provide a modest £SOO in relief of rates. During the year a reduction in price from 7s 6d to 6s 8d per thousand feet was made, and the Town Clerk says in his report, “The reductions in the price of gas for lighting purposes from 10s to 6s Sd or 33 J per cent in five years is an eloquent- testimony to the advantages of municipal control, and our prices, 6s Sd for lighting and 5s lOd for cooking and heating, will bear comparison' with any works in the Dominion putting out two or three times the quantity of gas we are making.” He adds, “The factor of output in relation to price is, as even a . most superficial study of the economics of gas manufacture will show, a most important one, to emphasise which I have but to say that we could produce double the quantity of - gas we are now selling without- adding to our labor expenses and with but a trifling additional outlay for interest, with the result, that a saving of Is Sd or Is 9d per 1000 cubic feet could be shown in the cost of manufacture.”