EDGECUMBE RIVER BRIDGE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 60, 30 March 1943, Page 4

EDGECUMBE RIVER BRIDGE

FEW people realise the important link constituted by the river bridge at Edgecumbe for over it passes all the main highway traffic from Rotorua, including heavy commercial 1 lorries and service buses. Fewer still realised until recently, the shocking state of neglect into which this structure had been permitted to drift. Until the matter was taken up by the Edgecumbe School Committee and brought by it to the notice of the County Council, the bridge from the viewpoint of the average motorist who crossed and re-crossed it on trips to and from the plains it seemed substantial enough. When however its understructures are reported to have rotted away, its side-rails to be simply swinging in air and its decking to be vibrating under the weight of every passing vehicle, then it is surely time for something to be done and done quickly ben fore a serious accident takes place. While recognising the shortage of staff in these days when war purposes taket precedance over all civil .undertakings the P.W.D. should not forget its duty to civilian and commercial facilities : wh|ch are also necessary to the war effort if we are' to maintain production and live up to the off-repeated injunction to—'carry on.'