"ATROCIOUS!"

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19177, 7 December 1927, Page 6

"ATROCIOUS!"

WEST COAST ROADS.

WRONG SYSTEM OF GRADING

A warning to motorists who contemplate spending their holidays touring on the West Coast was given by Mr Ivcith Hadfield yesterday, speaking to a representative of The Pkess, who called on him.

Mr Hadfield returned on Saturday from a motor tour on the Coast. Ho was enthusiastic, as aro all visitors, in praise of the beauties of scenery, but heartily condemned tho manner in which the roads are maintained, The main roads on the West Coast are the care of the Public Works Department, Mr Hadfield said, but their condition is such that tho trip to Franz Josef is almost impossible in a light car such as - the 9 h.p. English model he was driving. For many miles lie was forced to proceed at only 5 miles per hour, solely owing to the state of the roads.

The system of grading, is the cause of the shocking state of the roads. Instead of carting metal and putting it on the road where it may be required the Department has a heavy grader at work, which scrapos up boulders, grass and- rubbish .from the sides of the road and deposits the conglomerate material on the crown. In some places heavy boulders and rubbish were two feet high along the centre of the roads, and progress was difficult even in touring cars with a good clearance. "Even some of the Department's officers found fault with this system of heavily grading the road," said Mr Hadfield, "but apparently instructions are issued by a foreman who sees the roads only very occasionally, and the grader will cover miles of road in this devastating work." On the journey from Christchurch up the cast coast and down the West Coast as far as Murchison the roads were pood, Hadfield said, but from Murchison to Inangahua Junction the roads were heavily graded in the manner referred to. From Inangahua to Reefton again the road was in quite good order, and from Reefton to Greymouth, but from Greymouth to Otinv it was atrocious

"In the whole length from Greymouth to Otira, a distance of over 50 miles," he concluded, "there were only two road-men trying to make the road passablp for traffic. It is surely a matter for the Canterbury Automobile Association to consider."