Council to ask for more rural road metal money

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 603, 12 September 1995, Page 8

Council to ask for more rural road metal money

Increased funding from Transit New Zealand for more metal application to Ruapehu' s rural roads is to be asked for by the Ruapehu District Council. In a report to the Waimarino Community Board last week, area engineer south Don Sattler told the board the above, following an earlier request from the board for a report. In the report he stated that it was explained to council (at a workshop) that poor maintenance was a districtwide problem and "had been caused by an increase in rural traffic volumes and in particular to the Waimarino area — heavy logging and increased large stock vehicles". "The present allocation of maintenance metal ... had not kept pace with the increase in heavy vehicles' weighting and therefore many roads were showing signs of distress due to insufficient depths of metal," he added. Board member Winston Oliver challenged the report. "I believe the report is mischievous. I don't believe there has been an increase in rural traffic — if s a lot of bunkum," he fumed. He said with the rural downtum there was less traffic (on the roads), and blamed the problem on the lessening of the amount of metal put on the roads. He said there was only 25 per cent of the amount of metal going on now in comparison to the county council days. Board chairman Colin Webb said it was the size of tmcks that was doing the damage. He said stock trucks today were three times the size they were, adding that there was increased traffic because farmers went to town every day now, not once a fortnight like they used to.