MAIN HIGHWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 84, 6 October 1931, Page 7

MAIN HIGHWAYS

INCREASE OF SUBSIDY

DRIVING STOCK AT NIGHT

At the last monthly meeting of the Main Highways Board, a number of communications were received _ from local bodies expressing appreciation of the board's decision to increase the maintenance subsidy for the current year from £2 for £,1 to £3 for £1. The board received representations regarding the'danger of driving stock on highways at night, it being stated that mobs of cattle are constantly being encountered without warning, and that accidents were arising through that cause. One county council suggested that under such circumstances, droving should only be permitted if the stock was preceded and followed by a man carrying a warning light. The board decided to bring the matter before the notice of the Director-General of Agriculture. As a matter of policy, the board encourages the grouping of local authorities in schemes for joint traffic inspection, and a number of such arrangements are in operation under which several local bodies combine to appoint a traffic inspector to work in their areas, on a basis of finance mutually arranged. The board has hitherto subsidised such contracts on a £ for & basis, but in order to extend the system it has decided from Ist October to make a subsidy to approved groups for traffic inspection on the basis of £2 for £1 on the inspector's salary and expenses. Where a local authority carries out road work which results in telegraph and power poles becoming an obstruction to the highway, the Main Highways Board is prepared to assist in the cost of setting back the poles to the same extent as tho subsidy it pays for tho highways work which has necessitated the removal, this subsidy to cover the proportion of the cost borno by the local authority.