THE WAITOTARA BRIDGE.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 516, 6 May 1880, Page 2

THE WAITOTARA BRIDGE.

The bridge over the Waitotara river is in need of repair. Tho planking is in a dangerous condition. The bridge is the joint property of the two County Councils of Patca and Wanganui, but we understand that the management and maintenance of the structure devolve on the Wanganui Council, by a mutual arrangement effected through the Government. The duty of timely repair is therefore theirs, the Patca Council having now’ no voice in the management, though paying half the cost. We suggested, on Tuesday, that in the event of a claim for damages being brought, through some serious accident, the plaintiff might recover against both Councils. The law provides, however, that in a joint ownership of this kind the Council charged with the bridge’s maintenance is the body to be sued for damages. That does not relieve the Patca Council, in this case, from a legal obligation at common law to pay one half the damages for injury through neglect; because if it could be shown that the Patca Council were cognisant of the clanger which caused an accident, jet did not relieve itself of responsibility by notifying such danger to the managing Council at Wanganui, the Patca Council could not plead in Court that its liability bad been removed by the mutual arrangement as to management. A very large claim might ensue from such neglect. Wc called attention to this liability at law, in order to bring the bridge’s condition under tho notice of the. Patca County Council, for with that of Wanganui this journal can have no claim to interfere. Patca ratepayers arc interested in having tho blame of neglect laid in the right quarter.