Allocation Of Funds For Roads Criticised

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 9

Allocation Of Funds For Roads Criticised

(New Zealand Press Association)

GISBORNE. April 30. I County councils from one end of New Zealand to the other were milking the Roads Fund for all they were worth, and the fund was being used for purposes for which it was never intended and some expenditure had no relation whatever to reading, said the Mayor of Gisborne, Mr H. H. Barker, at the annual meeting of the No. 4 District Roads Council today. It was no use blaming the Roads Board for the inadequacy of funds for arterial highways, he said. The real blame lay with the legislation, which not only permitted but actually encouraged expenditure in directions of secondary importance. Three years’ experience had mor.e than justified his criticism, he said.

Under the act, said Mr Barker, the board was required to pay subsidies on rates to counties and on population to boroughs. Simply by increasing their rates the counties could obtain more from the roads fund, but the borougs’ share was pegged on population. There was even greater scope for imposition in the legislative provision that not less than three quarters of the expenditure on main highways should come from the fund. Subsidy for Counties a Naturally, the counties went for f all the £3 for £1 money they : could get, and it was this policy f more than anything else which threatened to nullify the efforts t of the board. s The effect of these factors was g that the subsidies to counties had increased from £4.300,000 in 1 1954-55 to over £7,000,000 in 1956- ( 57, an increase of 63 per cent, in j two years. By way of contrast, the increase to municipalities in 1 the same period was from < £1.446,000 to £1,549.000, or 7 per cent. ; Mr Barker added that the board « ■ had" provided almost as much money for county roads, includ- i > ing main highways, as it did for ’ State highways. It met 60 per [ cent, of the total expenditure on i these roads, and in addition, . found all the money for State highways. j Even after applying some reme- . dial measures, the board’s estimates for the current year t allocated only 43 per cent, of its - fund to State highways. The total j of just over £8,000,000 had to be i distributed between 20 road districts, an average of £400,000 each c —and No. 4 district required i £462,000 for the northern outlet ) alone. This was typical of the situation throughout the country. e “We cannot hope to make better - progress until the system of alloe cation is changed,” he) said. “In □ my opinion, the greater part of v the Roads Board’s funds should be earmarked for State highways.

That, surely, was the intention behind the legislation, and steps should be taken to ensure that it is implemented. “The Roads Board is not to blame. It is the victim, not only of circumstances, but of a calculated raid on its* fund. It has done its best under extremely difficult circumstances and has tried to be fair and equitable, but it is just as incapable as anyone else of getting a quart out of a pint pot. “Until the board is released from the legislative fetters that bind it there can be little hope of real improvement. Unless it is released, the whole system of roading finance, excellent though it is in conception, will be wrecked by the way in which it is being abused.”