THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1924. OUR BOROUGH ROADS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4724, 14 July 1924, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1924. OUR BOROUGH ROADS.

The repprt of the conditions o£ the streets and roads within our borough as presented by the Works Committee at the Borough Council meeting on Thursday last discloses a very serious state of affairs.in so far as any improvements in the immediate future are concerned. The report (published in Friday’s issue) leads to the conclusion that pur City Fathers are handling the matter of street improvements with a feeling of hopelessness that any real good may be effected. To submit such a report is certainly very disconcerting for ratepayers, and especially those who have little or no facility in the way of ingress and egress to their residences. The main questipn is, why should the streets have been allowed to get into the present state of disrepair 1 Not a little has been made out of the fact that the autumn and winter have been abnormally wet, but the weather has been general and other boroughs have suffered similarly, but it is doubtful if they can show streets as bad as our own. Also, the extra traffic of motor vehicles during the recent railway strike has been offered as an excuse for the disrepair, but such traffic did not cut up our subsidiary streets. Again, it has been said that the borough received a legacy o£ unformed roads from the County Council. After nine years of administration under the borough, has much, if anything, been done to improve such roads ? The loan money authorised has not yet been spent' on laying down roads in permanent materials, although a certain amount of preliminary work was done in the beginning of the winter, the greater portion of which will have to be done again when the finer weather sets in. It is hardly reasonable for a local body, on finding that it had begun formation work too I'ate in the year to enable it being completed before the winter, to close a street and forbid ratepayers to use it until that local body was prepared to go on with the work. The average ratepayer is prepared to make allowances and suffer inconveniences where road formation work is in progress because the means usually justifies the end, but what of our old roads and footpaths ? The Council freely admits that the roads are in. a serious state of disrepair and cannot be put in order out of. maintenance. Two points here suggest themselves : Why is it that they have been allowed to deteriorate so much, and why is not the borough revenue sufficient to carry out ordinary repairs and maintenance work ? Undoubtedly our town is making progress slowly, as disclosed in the num-

ber of buildings erected recently, but the best and surest way to make our town go ahead is to adopt a policy of providing reasonably good roads and footpaths. Nothing can be more detrimental to any town’s progress than untidy and upkempt streets, and nothing makes ratepayers more dissatisfied with their lot and ever ready to condemn .their town. The Council is rather proud of the fact that it has no antecedent liability, and that most of the accounts showed substantial credit balances at the end of the financial year—small wonder, when our streets have been so neglected. The majority of ratepayers would be only too willing to shoulder a debt so long as they had reasonable roads to traverse. The time has arrived when more consideration should be shown to ratepayers, a»id the present time would be opportune for .the Council to call a public meeting and take the ratepayers into its confidence, with the idea of evolving some scheme for the general improvement of our roads and streets. Immediate action is necessary, and it will be folly to delay further because of lack of funds. Money has been found for deserving matters of public welfare in the past, and there is no apparent reason why the Council should not receive help in this instance.