EDGECUMBE WANTS OLD BRIDGE BACK IN USE AGAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 95, 3 June 1949, Page 5

EDGECUMBE WANTS OLD BRIDGE BACK IN USE AGAIN

Decision to ask the Whakatane County Council to get its engineer to prepare an urgent report with estimates of the cost of repairing the Edgecumbe traffic bridge to make it safe for traffic until the new; bridge is in use, and to urge I<he Council to go ahead with the repairs immediately material is available was reached by a fairly wellattended public meeting in the Central Theatre, Edgecumbe, last night.

The Council is to be requested to make a copy of the engineer’s report available to the executive of the Edgecumbe Progressive Association, which convened the meeting.

The meeting was the outcome of widespread dissatisfaction with the present arrangement whereby most traffic is being diverted around to Te Teko while the new bridge is under construction. Delay in mails consequent upon that arrangement has also caused considerable inconvenience, it is claimed, and last night’s meeting decided to approach the Postmaster at Whakatane for the reinstatement of the former service.

Mr D. Radcliffe was in the chair, and Mr H. W. Carter secretary. Cr R. C. Leslie explained that the bridge had been handed over to the Council by the Government twelve months ago and was then in a bad state .of repair. Negotiations were under way for repairs to be made with a Government subsidy, but so far had not been satisfactorily concluded.

Mr Davies, manager of the N.Z.R. Road Services office at Whakatane, stated the position from the Road Service point of view. He said the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Co’s store was now a temporary depot.