OPOTIKI NOTES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 532, 8 December 1928, Page 5

OPOTIKI NOTES

The monthly meeting of the Opotiki Chamber of Commerce was held on Thursday night.

The Nelsjon Chamber of Commerce, in replying to an inquiry from the Opotiki Chamber regarding passenger and freight concessions by road between the railheads at Glenhope and Murchison, stated "that passengers and freight were carried at railway rates. The system been instituted by the Government and was the only one at present in operation in New Zealand. The railway between the two towns had been promised by successive Governments and it was because of the lack of railway communication that the concessions were made. The carriage of goods and passengers had been let by tender. There were certain restrictions, such as the carrying of large herds of cattle. The chamber decided to defer consideration of the reply till the next meeting, when the question of whether the chamber will press the Government for a similar service between the railhead at Taneatua and Opotiki will be fully discussed. Replies were revived from the Opotiki and Whakatane County Councils in connection with requests for improvements to the Opotiki-Whakatane main highway. The president stated that the matter had been attended to by the Main Highways Board. The Hon. K. S. Williams, Minister of Public Works, in reply to a request by the chamber for a trial survey of a proposed deviation on the Opotiki-East Cape road, advised that his department had investigated the matter and that from the report submitted it appeared that the probable saving in distance as compared with the surveyed route would be negligible, and the capital cost would be greater than the present road along the coast. Even should the deviation be constructed the coastal road would still be required. The whole question would have to be very carefully considered before the Government was justified in authorising expenditure on the work. The department’s district engineer would go further into the matter during the present summer, when he would be in that local-