PUTARURU-LICHFIELD.

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 47, 11 September 1924, Page 2

PUTARURU-LICHFIELD.

SIX MILES OF RHYOLITE, Bitumen Surface Later, Tirau and Overdale Roads. Reference to the Putaruru-Tokoroa roads loan of £IO,OOO was made by the county engineer, Mr. M. E. Fitzgerald, at the ratepayers’ meeting in the Putaruru Town Hall on Thursday evening - . He intimated that this was one of the prior loans being absorbed by the comprehensive county main roads proposals totalling £201,000. On this big loan being carried, the £3OOO allocation for the Putaruru-Lichfield-Tokoroa road, together with £3OOO subsidy from the Highways Board, could be expended forthwith, and he had arranged with the Highways Board that it be spent in putting down a foundation of rhyolite ten feet wide. There should be sufficient money to finance some six miles of this and later, out of the big loan, a surfacing of hard metal and then bitumen would be financed. The Highways Board had refused to grant a subsidy for rhyolite only without provision for a harder surfacing. The comprehensive loan provided this necessary provision. THE TIRAU ROAD. Mr. N. H. Ashford inquired why local rhyolite, then, had not been used as a foundation on the Putaruru post office-Oraka stream length of the Tirau road instead of local shingle. The engineer replied that the Highways Board had approved of the shingle as a foundation for a coat of harder metal later, and then bitumen there also. THE OVERDALE ROAD. On the Overdale road on Monday a recommencement with the metalling contract was made. Application for a Government subsidy of some £6OO or £7OO has been made by the Matamata County Council for the Overdale job, and if this is granted sufficient money should be available to continue the metalling right through from Putaruru to Taumangi station without a gap.