HUTT ROAD CONTROL

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2793, 10 June 1916, Page 3

HUTT ROAD CONTROL

LOWER HUTT COUNCIL'S POSITION.

Tho position of the smaller boroughs, in regard to the payment of their quota of tho cost of the Hutt Road, and its maintenance is becoming more unsatisfactory as time goes on. At Tuesday's meeting of the Hutt Road Board, tho Mayor of Petone (Mr. J.' W. M*Ewan) made Petono's position in the .matter! vory clear. Mr.' : H. Baldwin (Mayor of Lower Hutt) is-equalh—as*'empbatic as Mr. M'Ewau in regarding the board as a dummy one, devoid of practically all power, and is equally as earnest in saying that his borough cannot afford such charges as it is being asked to meet, without seriously affecting tho whole of the property-holders and rent-payers in the borough. Mr. Baldwin states that the Main Hutt Road (not tho part renewed and widened), runs through the Lower Hutt Borough from White's Line (the southern boundary) and Park Avenuo (the northern boundary), a distance of 3} miles. That length of roadway took all the Toad traffic between Wellington and tho Wairarapa, including, of course, the heavy wagon and motor traffic between tho city and the big military camps at Trentham and Featherston, and its -upkeep cost the ratepayers about ,£7OO annually, whilst the six. miles of the newlywidened and straightened road was to cost the contributing bodies >£5170, tho estimate of the engineer (Mr. W. H. Morton) for maintenance only, be it understood. Tho amount that the Hutt Borough has to find towards that amount was ii7so per annum, on top of which it had to pay the sum of £i'io principal and interest on ■ the - capital charge,, so that tho total charge his little- borough had to face on Hutt Road charges alone amounted to i! 1870 per annum. The total, revenue of-the borough was only .£10,853, so that nearly a fifth of the total revenue was needed to meet the big charges on the road. Then if tho Hospital and Charitable Aid Board's levy of ,£1253 was added to the road charges, it would be seen at a glance where nearly a third of the borough's revenue went to.

Asked what ho proposed to do about it, Mr. Baldwin said liiat he hardly knew. He said that a special Hutt lioad rate would have to be struck to meet the account, tut looking farther ahead than that, ho thought that the burden of rates must have its effect on the Hutt Valley as a place of residence. Wellington had very few avenues of expansion, and of those few the Hutt Valley was destined in the future to be 0110 of the most desirable, but it would seem as though bars to progress were teing deliberately erected/ Asked if lie favoured the toll-gate idea, Mr. Baldwin said that it originated in his council, and failing any tetter method of making those pay who should pay, he favoured the toll-gate. His council had circularised the other boroughs on the point, and so -far knew that Petoue favoured the idea, and Wellington and Onslow were opposed to it. But it now appeared that they had no power to do anything in the matter of erec.tiu" a tollgate on the improved section of the road, as to catch all traffic that passed over the road it should bo erected near the railway bridge between Thorndon and Kaiwarra; situated as they were, nothing could bo done except ty the Wellington City Council, in which body the fee simple of .the road was vested. •' "When I protested about the Act long ago," said Mr. Baldwin, "there were those w°ho imagined I was making needless trouble. Now they arc beginning to realise that I was not so far out 1 in my estimate of the consequences of agreeing to so one-sided a Bill!"