• Preamble

  WHEREAS under the Taranaki County Reserves Act 1877 (in this Act referred to as the Act of 1877) the land described in the Schedule thereto was vested in the Taranaki County Council in trust for the improvement of the Junction Road in the said county: And whereas, consequent upon the implementation of clause 15 of the Schedule to the Special Powers and Contracts Act 1884 and under and by virtue of the provisions of section 41 of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies Empowering Act 1921-22 and due to exchanges upon the taking and closing of roads, the land now vested in the Chairman, Councillors, and Inhabitants of the County of Taranaki (in this Act referred to as the Corporation) subject to the provisions of the Act of 1877 is that defined in the Schedule to this Act (such land being also hereinafter referred to as the Junction Road Reserves): And whereas section 3 of the Act of 1877 provided that the Corporation may lease the lands subject to the provisions of that Act by auction or tender for such period and on such conditions as it shall think fit not exceeding forty-two years and apply the rents or profits arising therefrom to the improvements of the said road: And whereas in the year nineteen hundred and twenty a part of the area under the former jurisdiction of the Corporation was severed and as from the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty, constituted a new county under the name of the Inglewood County, and under an award subsequently made by the Controller and Auditor-General under section 15 of the Counties Act 1908 on the twenty-third day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty-one, the Corporation was directed to pay to the Inglewood County Council annually 591/1,253 of the net revenue received from the Junction Road Reserves the Corporation being entitled to charge five percent for collection and administration, the said Reserves being still vested in the Corporation: And whereas up till the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, the rents accruing on the Junction Road Reserves were apportioned in accordance with the above-mentioned direction, the balance showing in the Corporation's Junction Road Reserve account having been shown as having been expended on the Junction Road: And whereas from the first day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, any balance in the Corporation's Junction Road Reserve account (after providing for the proportion payable to the Inglewood County Council and costs of collection as aforesaid and carrying forward in each year balances arising from late payments of rent) was transferred to the Mangorei Riding account to offset the Corporation's share of expenditure on the said Junction Road which had been designated a main highway under the control and management of the Corporation: And whereas on or about the first day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, the Junction Road between New Plymouth and Inglewood was designated a State highway under the control and management of the Main Highways Board and any balance (after making the apportionment and provision above referred to) in the Corporation's Junction Road Reserve account was transferred to its Mangorei Riding account and used for expenditure on roads within the Mangorei Riding: And whereas on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-three, riding accounts having been abolished, the balance in the Mangorei Riding account was transferred to the Corporation's general account, and since that date balances in the Corporation's Junction Road Reserve account (after making the apportionment and provisions above referred to) have been transferred to the general account: And whereas income from the Junction Road Reserves has from time to time been derived from leases of the said reserves under the provisions of the Public Bodies Leases Act 1908 containing provisions enabling the leases to be renewed for successive periods which, if considered part of the original terms of the leases would exceed the maximum period of forty-two years prescribed for leases by section 3 of the Act of 1877: And whereas doubts have arisen as to the validity of the aforesaid leases and also as to the validity of the appropriation by the Corporation as hereinbefore set forth of the income from the Junction Road Reserves and it is desirable to remove those doubts and validate the same and to repeal the Act of 1877, and section 41 of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies Empowering Act 1921-22, and to prescribe the purposes for which the Corporation shall hold the lands described in the Schedule hereto and the application of the income therefrom:

BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the General Assembly of New Zealand in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: