TURUA ROADING FINANCE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4329, 12 October 1921, Page 2

TURUA ROADING FINANCE.

It is really refreshing, something to -gladden the hearts of those who love sound progress, to note the keen interest and practical enterprise of the Turua district residents in the matter of obtaining good roajls. Clean and sharp and businesslike, they promptly followed up the Taranaki visit and subsequent public meeting with a unanimously endorsed proposal to the Hauraki Plains County Council, at the monthly meeting at Ngatea on Monday, that- the Council should take steps to raise £25,000 for modern reading purposes over a special area comprising the Turua riding and a small portion of Netherton riding. The deputation which waited on the Council put forward a very helpful suggestion, namely, that a committee of residents in the area concerned should have the privilege—it might almost have been termed the right—to co-operate with the Council in carrying out the work if a,nd when the loan proposal is carried and the money is available. This would be an admirable arrangement, and it is gratifying to note that the idea had the hearty support of the Council. One of the advantages, although not stated by the deputation, is that local men, being on the spot all the time, will see to it that labour is employed to the best advantage, and that there will be no room for such a complaint as was made in regard to the work on Wilson’s Road, Netherton., where, through the non-arrival of certain essential machinery, labour (it was alleged) was not utilised recently in the most economical and efficient manner. With such a scattered and large area an engineer cannot be expected to be in every locality every day, nor every week, either, for that matter. The local committee will serve a very useful purpose, and its efforts should assist considerably towards getting twenty shillings in value for that amount of expenditure. The Council acted wisely in deciding to make a thorough test of the amount'of metal now in the foundations of the to be reconstructed, in order to ascertain whether or, not the estimate is commensurate with the magnitude of the undertaking. Proceeding on the cautious and yet progressive lines so. far followed-, the scheme should prove eminently successful, and an object lesson to the rest of the County, and even to outside local bodies.

While on the subject of reading on the Plains, it may be pertinent to comment that 'certain roads under the jurisdiction of the Lands Department, the Kerepeehi Road, for example, are now in fine condition to try the experiment of tar-sealing, or waterproofing the fine surface now obtaining. Such a course is also part of the policy of the Hauraki Plains County Council, and it is to be hoped that the Lands Department will receive the suggestion in regard to its own roads favourably, and give the County and the country at large the benefit of a trial of tar-sealing on reading material which is veryliable to _ disintegration by the weather.