GREATER NEW PLYMOUTH

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 87, 3 October 1911, Page 2

GREATER NEW PLYMOUTH

COUNTY COUNCIL PROCEEDS CAUTIOUSLY. The question of a Greater New Plymouth cropped up at the Taranaki County Council meeting yesterday. Cr. Browne was urging the Council to vote some yards of stone for renewal and maintenance of the roads in the Hurworth riding. He said he had been all over the road 3 and carefully observed the conditions, anid found the metal woe so thin that without very heavy remetalling the roads could not be kept open. It was, he said, the inevitable result of the starvation policy of a halfpenny rate. Besides the ordinary traffic on the road they had the traction engine trallic from the sawmill, the creamery traffic, a suburban 'bus service, and the whole of the road trallic from the upper portion of the Oakura riding, and tliey would soon have to carry the traffic of the Upper M&ngorui road, because of the new road that was now being made to connect the Mangorei and Carrington roads. A silence fell on the Council. Members had evidently had a chat about it. Cr. JfcAlium mildly suggested: ''How much of the Hurworth riding will be in existence next year?" Cr. Hopson laughed silently and nodded vigorously. All eyes turned on Cr. Browne, but it was the chairman who replied. lie said that the question wa-s one which the Council would have to take into serious consideration. They all knew of the movement to merge the Hurworth riding into the suburban area, although that was where most of the revenue of the riding came from. The chairman said that he was not going to refer to the wisdom or otherwise of these people in merging into the borough. Jt was their own business. But the Council must protect itself. If this merging took place the adjustment of accounts would be made between the county (not the rifling) and the borough as at March 31 next. So that if the Hurworth riding spent all this money on metal, and then this Greater New Plv- , mouth scheme came about, the whole of the county would have to stand its share of paying for the metal.

Cr. Andrews asked what effect the merging would hare on the rate revenue of tlie country.—The chairman said it would mean a loss of probably £(100 or £BOO a vear. The chairman said that if the Borough Council could see that this district would need about £IOOO spent in metal tliey would perhaps not be so anxious to secure the added territory. The borough people were going to take the district in, ho supposed, to benefit themselves, else they wouldn't take them. .Apart altogether from this phase of the question, though, he could not support the granting of all this stone in the present state of the riding finances. They had to remember, of course, that the roads hud been allowed last year to "wear clean out." Or. Stevens moved, and Cr. 'MeAllnm seconded, (hat (hp matter be deferred for a month in order to allow the chairman to make enquiries with a view of ascertaining what amount of this metal was proposed to he used in the area proposed to be merged. Cr. Tirowne: That will mean that all (he other contracts will be let before our tenders are called and all (he contractors will lie "full up."' and the llitnvorfh riding will have lo pay an extra shilling a yard for ils stone. Eventually 1044 yards were authorised to be obtained for the riding, 1330 yds for Foreman Eva's length, and .314 yds for Foreman Xorris'.