NORTH AUCKLAND ROADS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 910, 1 March 1930, Page 10

NORTH AUCKLAND ROADS

WORKS MINISTER PROMISES ASSISTANCE INSPECTION IN THE NORTH Special to THE SL’N DAKGAVILLE, Friday. Urgently required improvements of certain North Auckland roads, in the Otarnatea and Hobson counties, will now be proceeded with, as a result of promises of grants made by. the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. E. A. Kunsorq, during his tour today. A delay of a year in providing access to Tana's quarry, near Matakohe. will be avoided through the Minister's undertaking to find £4OO for metalling the main road and Parahi Road. The metalling of the latter route will provide a junction with the main road to the railway at Paparoa. A graht of £SOO from the Outlying Districts’ Fund has also been promised for improving the Parahi Read, which has been partly metalled, before the winter. A free grant of £IOO is also to be provided for improvement of a particularly bad section of Oven’s Road. BACKBLOCKS ROADING “Reading of the backblocks is being seriously handicapped by the difficulties of county councils in finding their share of cost of works being carried out by the Main Highways Board,” stated the Minister, in replying to a public welcome extended him at Dargaville this evening. lie promised to extend the back country every assistance, and added that, if the main highways system was going to delay the metalling of backblocks roads, the politicians must co-operate to obviate this state of affairs. Closer settlement of rural lands was referred to by the Hon. J. G. Coates, in speaking at this function. He considered that land-owners in the North, without exception, were prepared to sell their properties to the Government for settlement, which he considered should be carried out on a group basis. Unless settlers in the North could employ fertilisers, he said, they would not be able to compete with the more progressive parts of the Dominion. Mr. Coates said that much of the pipe clay lands, and other areas regarded as poor, had proved by far the most remunerative where taken up in small blocks. The Minister inspected the railway construction work between the present railhead at Kirikopuni and Dargaville, and was favourably impressed with the progress in spite of big difficulties. The unstable nature of the country and the difficulty in constructing fillings was pointed out, the piles of one bridge having to be driven to 135 feet. Ten miles of line have been laid between Tangowahine and Kirikopuni, and it is planned to complete the construction to Dargaville within the next year.