WAIHOU MEANDER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5471, 6 September 1929, Page 2

WAIHOU MEANDER.

AN ISOLATED SETTLER. BRIDGE TO BE ERECTED. At yesterday’s meeting of the Ohinemuri County Council Cr. T. A. Barrett brought up the question of spoil from the dredging of the Rotokohu canal at the Waihou meander being left on the side in a manner that seriously impeded ingress and egress of settlers in the vicinity. Cr Barrett said he was of the opinion that the Public Works Department should be asked to level it down so as to give communication to the people isolated there, who had neither bridge nor road, or anything else in the way of access.

Cr. W. F. Johnstone explained that under an agreement between the Public Works Department and the newly formed Tirohia-Rotokohu Drainage Board the former was to recondition shortly the drain in question. He suggested leaving the matter of levelling off to the drainage board, who would see that it was done.

Cr. Johnstone said that, in company with the chairman and Cr. Barrett, he had lately visited the spot and investigated. The settlers there previously had access through private property, but latterly that had been fenced, with a result that they had to boat themselves and swim stock across the Waihou meander. Mr Gerrand, one of the settlers most intimately concerned, had offered to swim the necessary timber across if the county engineer could erect a temporary bridge as a relief measure. This the engineer had been instructed to do, and the speaker asked that under the circumstances the council should validate the action.

The chairman, Cr. C. Mason, added that Mr Gerrand could neither get in nor out ; he was a trier, and the least the council could do was to give him a decent approach before he was discouraged and lost heart. How it ever came about that this settler was so absolutely cut off Cr. Johnstone expressed himself as being at a loss to understand.

The council unanimously validated the erection of the bridge, and left the matter of levelling the spoil to the Rotokohu-Tirohia Drainage Board, as suggested by Cr. Johnstone.