A BAD PIECE OF ROAD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1271, 14 July 1914, Page 3

A BAD PIECE OF ROAD.

CR. VENN EXPLAINS.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Many thanks for yours of Thursday just to hand and your request that the undersigned will reply to the leader contained therein. As the dispute between the Manawatu and Horowhenua Councils re this and other roads is still unsettled I do not care to say more than that since building the Manawatu bridge, this road to it is an annual recurring trouble and the bad spot you mentioned being the first to receive flood water and the last to get rid of same. It is usually during winter in a soft dirty state. We have already borrowed and spent two loans of about £6oo upon this two miles of road, and it has been a greater drain upon our general revenue than ten times its length in any other part of the County. The milk traffic during nine months and the metal traffic during the wet winter months leave the road each spring in a deplorable condition. During the last two months between one and two thousand tons of metal have passed over it, much of it on narrow tyres, and from this same cause some of our Shannon streets are, at the present moment, in a worse condition than the quag mire you mention. Directly the metal carts show signs of easing off we propose to again re-grade the worse spots and fit the road generally for another year’s wear and tear, but unless our neighbours insist on using wider tyres for their heavy traffic its condition next year at this time will be no better than it is at present. Re your suggestion of a new road through the bush, this would entail heavy expense for land severance and construction, and as our own ratepayers have very little use for the road they will not support another loan for that purpose.—l am, etc., F. W. Venn. Shannon, July nth, 1914*