Following a motion at Town Council, Tuesday night, Picton Public Utilities Commission will proceed with preliminary planning for a $250,000 improvement to the town’s water works system.

P.U.C. Commissioner Jack Ward spoke before Council on the necessity of going ahead with the improvement as suggested by the Commission’s consulting engineers.

Before submitting motion to allow the P.U.C. to proceed with planning, Councillor Robert Walmsley asked Mr. Ward if the proposed improvements to the system would save the ratepayers any money in the long run by increased efficiency. Mr. Ward replied that some maintenance costs would be saved on the old reservoir but that the improvements were essentially a matter of updating the water works system.

GENERAL
The Town authorities are considering the report of the Planning Board dated January 1963, in which a very considerable additional area is proposed for annexation to the Town, which will require expanding the water distribution system into the north of the present Town limits. No doubt with the prospect bridge over the Bay of Quinte at Deseronto and increased traffic on the highways on the north side of Picton Bay, a proposed by-pass highway will come into being and development will expand to the north of the Town.

In planning for waterworks, we think that in the future an interval of about 20 years is the limit of what can be reasonably foreseen.

FORECAST OF GROWTH
We have prepared a graph showing the past population grow the Town since 1935 and the water consumption, and have projected the trend of growth into the future, 20 years hence, to 1985. It is reasonable to forecast that the population of Picton may be about 6,750 persons and with the military camp, the waterworks plant may serve from 8,750 to 9,000 persons. Annexation of lands now under consideration may indeed raise this forecast by upwards of 1,000 persons.