STOCK ROUTE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 255, 27 September 1928, Page 5

STOCK ROUTE.

PUTARURU-MAMAKU. Chamber’s Request. At Monday’s meeting of the Putaruru Town Board a letter was received from the Putaruru Chamber of Commerce urging the importance of a stock route from Putaruru to Mamaku. The letter stated that besides providing a far more direct route for stock great relief would be provided to the main highway on which the passage of stock was both dangerous and damaging. .The Public Works Department had advised that the proposal was a sound one for which a subsidy would be available, but that a survey and legislation were necessary, and that financial arrangements would have to be carried out by the Matamata County Council. Mr. Barr Brown: Didn’t the county engineer turn the' proposal down ? The chairman: Well, the council did. The position as I see it is that until some relief is accorded counties in the matter of rates they rightly refuse to take over any more new roads unless they are practically compelled to. This road is undoubtedly badly needed, but everyone knows that within six months of it being opened someone would be agitating for it to be metalled. Mr. Tomalin: I think the council has taken up a very sound attitude. Mr. Bent: What length would there be in the road ?

Mr. Yandle replied that it would save about ten or twelve miles. Mr. Neal thought that if the chamber could arrive at the saving effected through keeping stock off the main road they would find it would go a long way towards the cost of a stock route. Mr. Bent agreed that a cry would soon be raised for metalling, and thought that to counteract this a condition could be inserted that the road was for stock only. Mr. Barr Brown thought that a lot of fencing could be done away with. In the early days there were practlctically no fences from Waitara to Otorohanga. There were only bush tracks, and such a service would do in the present case. The chairman suggested that if the board favoured it, Mr. Darby could be asked to give his views. Finance was the big trouble, and he understood Mr. Darby had some scheme to. this end. The board then decided to ask Mr. Darby his opinion.