OCEAN BEACH ROAD.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2378, 15 November 1870, Page 2

OCEAN BEACH ROAD.

To the Editor of the Evenino Star. Sir —Your leader of last night has brought the Ocean Beach Road prominently before the public. As I have bad more to do with it than anyone else, you will allow me to give a short history. Fully three years ago the District Road Board resolved on opening the road for traffic, and with that view spent a good portion of the funds on it. As, however, the entrance to it through the Town Belt was beyond their jurisdiction, I was instructed to apply to the Government to have it formed. Having done so, a gang of prisoners was told off for the work, which was commenced and carried on for some time under my instruction. Suddenly an order was issued for the removal of the men to excavate the ground of the Masonic Hall, under the promise that the withdrawal was only temporary. On my calling on the Superintendent on the matter, he assured me the men would be back in about six weeks to finish the work. As they have not returned, T presume his Honor meant that the six weeks should be prophetically interpreted and represent six years. At all events the work has not yet been resumed, and although the cooking and dining apartments have been left on the ground as a security, the men are somewhere else. Mr Duncan, the present Treasurer, had an idea, and no doubt a good one, that if the road lino wero made a chain wide it would be au advantage, and asked the Board through me, and subsequently the Forbury Park Company to make arrangements with the proprietors for the extra width, and the Government would complete the at its own cost. I accordingly entered into negotiations, but found them rather difficult, as several of the proprietors were absentees ; and in other oases the value of the ground desired was beyond the means of the Board and the views of the Company. Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7, as well as 8, belonged to absentees who were not easily got at. Section G belongs to the Corporation of Dunedin, and the reply from that body was that they would give one-half the required ground, provided the opposite proprietor gave the other half, thus making an elbow on the road which wovkl destroy its appearance and regularity. Section 0 is church property, and those who have to do with the trustees of that estate know full well the ease with which they are approached, and the liberal spirit in which they are met. Section 10 represents the village of Kensington—and here the monetary difficulty crept up. To take half a t chain from the frontage of an eighth-acre section, would leave its proprietor a strip fit for no building purpose whatever ; and as one of the owners of these sections had his house erected and garden fenced, he very naturally and properly demanded full compensation. The remainder of 'he road being section 65 and application 2494. representing half a mile, belong to the same proprietor, and with a largo-hearted liberality he offered the ground to the Hoard gratis, provided they shifted his fence and formed a thorough ditch. On applying to him subsequently, on behalf of the Company, if he would renew his offer, he characteristically answered “he didua • xactly think it, but he would see.” The length of the road from Kensington to the Sandhills is exactly one and a quarter miles. It is the same width as other district roads ard suits all the requirements. The residents and proprietors did not ask for its widening, the Park Company did not insist on it, and the Road Board was in no

■way anxious on the matter. The whole responsibility of the delay rests with Mr Duncan, who having seen an avenue in some of the American cities he has visited, thought it would be an advantage to have such an ornament for our town, and he is riuht, but when difficulties jut out which cannot easily be overcome, I do think his ideal should give way to the necessary, and that for the advantage of the inhabitants bis dictum “ that nothing would be done to form the approach antil the half chain was obtained,’ should be withdrawn, and that the prisoners should forthwith be set to complete wind they hr,vo begun, and I doubt not the formation of the mad into speedily follow. The resident in that district are as much entitled to get access to their property as any others They bought the land, and pay their proportion of Custom duties, and are entitled to demand their fair share of the out’ay. . . The other question of aihhti nal floodgates, 1 will refer to in another letter. Yours, &c., Jas. MTkdoe.