Please wait. Contacting image service... loading

Article text

OBSOLETE PLANT j
Council's "White Elephants"
Inventory To Be Made
Following upon thc revelations mode in
"The Mercury" some time ago as to the
number of purchases made t>y tho City
Council at considerable expense, and
which had not boen put to use. Alder-
man Oldham at last night's meeting of
the Council referred" to the matter, and
moved:- .
That an inventory bc made of all use-
less or obsolete plant and material, in-
cluding vehicles, machines, tools, scrap
iron, junk and lumber generally with
a view of converting the same into cash.
Alderman Oldham said h¡6 justification
for asking the Council to consider the mo-
tion was. the large quantity of unused and
uncared for material lying about the vari-
ous Corporation depots. It was most es-
sential in any well conducted concern that
as soon as plant, etc., was no longer re-
quired, or was considered obsolete,
information as to its condition, location,
value, and recommendations as to ita
storage or disposal should" bo made avail-
able. Unless this was done regularly and
systematically, there must necessarily bc
an accumulation of oddments which lum-
ber up valuable space that otherwise could
be more profitably utilised. Ho had DO
reason for doubting the due noting of
goods which came into tho Council's
possession, nor did he doubt the chock-
ing, when the articles were handed over
to the various departments using them,
but he had a very strong suspicion that
their history afterwards was never care-
fully followed up, and that neither the
officials nor tho aldermen had accurate
and complete knowledge of obsolete or
other plant in the .various branches of
thc service. Ile also considered it highly
probable that the absence of such know-
ledge was often responsible for making
now purchases when convertible material,
or the actual article itself might already
bo in tho Corporation's possession. Evi-
dence seemed to point to thc necessity for
a well-kept stock-book which should show
at ii glance where any and every piece ot
plant was located.
"A FEW THINGS." .
A few things that hod casually como
under his notice, but which possibly only
represented quite a small porjtion of what
could be found by close inspection were:
A very large quantity of old iron and plant
of various descriptions thrown indiscrim
inatelv into a lumber yard in tark-strect,
near Brisbane-street; old cast iron mains:
obsolete water carts and disinfectant cart;
iron and other oddments littered about
the old tram yard, lower Macquarie-strcet;
broken iron-cutting machine; quantity of
largo iron roller wheels; salt water pump-
ing engine at Hunter-street yard; a con-
siderable quantity of plant nod iron in
asphalt mixing yard, lower Macquarie- ;
street; several very lange steel girders and
a quantity of iron work from thc old
bridge, lower Maequaric-etreet; tho hio
torical cement gun which had never been j
used, and cost the Council £7SS; an ob-
solete Dearborn lorry; old shovels and
tools; a soda fountain which would not
work: an acetylene plant; doors, window
frames, etc., from tho Town-hall altera-
tions; the £1,500 electric.lorry; old type-
writers and broken furniture; and tho
municipal buildings and ground at Xew
Town.
Continuing, Alderman Oldham said tho
electric lorry and the cement gun to-
gether represented a cash value of £2,258,
from which tho Council had received no
service whatever. They lay eating their
hoads off in interest at the rate of over
i £100 a year; and his recommendation in
I regard to them was that they be disposed
of at tlie earliest possible opportunity;
for as well as being non-productive^ they
were daily becoming of less value. It
i was not nt all improbable that st any
moment they might depreciate to the ex-
tent of 50 per cent, by reason of newer
I inventions, besides which the interest
bill had to be added to their cost.
Alderman Lamprill seconded, and the
motion was carried.
$