Roads Board Defers Aid To Open Up Scenic Access

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28270, 7 May 1957, Page 21

Roads Board Defers Aid To Open Up Scenic Access

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 6. The National Roads Board has refused meantime to subsidise a £lO.OOO plan to open up a fresh scenic access to the virgin southern snowfields of Mount Ruapehu. The application was made to the Roads Board by the Tongariro National Park Board on behalf of the Ohakune Mountain Roads Association. The chairman of the park board. Mr E. McKenzie, of Wellington, said the decision was a blow to his board, which, with its limited resources, could not yet help to finance the project from an annual grant of £250. The Roads Board, he said, was prepared to reconsider . its decision in two years’ time. The association, which has already worked through six miles of dense bush, wants to complete the nine-mile road next year. It has metalled two of the six miles. The association has raised £4OOO and done £6OOO worth of work. A contractor has supplied plant without charge and money has been raised in a variety of ways. Military trainees from Waiouru have carried out bridging exercises in the upper section—where two substantial structures are needed—and, according to the

park board, the Army is expected to return in November. The association chairman, Mr M. Gould, said at Ohakune yesterday: “We need a £1 for £1 subsidy on the work we have done to complete the job; we intend to press on.”