BETTER ROADS.
ACTION OF INGLEWOOD COUNTY. LOAN TO BE RAISED. Taranaki has a reputation for its excellent roads, though the portion of the road passing through the Inglewood county from the Waiwakaiho bridge to the Waipuku crossing has at times not been all that could be desired by the motorist. This stretch has been considerably improved of late, and at yesterday’s meeting of the Inglewood County Council, on the motion of the chairman (Mr. A. Corkill), a progressive scheme to raise a loan to seal the main roads with bitumen was proposed. (f the plan is carried out it should bring the district into line with the most progressive of the South Taranaki local bodies.
The chairman moved, in accordance with notice of motion, that the necessary .steps be taken to raise special loans totalling £25,000 for the purpose of carrying out works as follows:
(1) Recoating, widening and surfacing with bitumen those portions of the main roads of the county which carried the heaviest traffic—£l9,3oo.
(2) The erection of two concrete bridges on the Junction Roacj, over the Ngatoro and Maketawa streams — £3lOO.
(3) New county offices in concrete and wood— £l2OO.
(4) First year’s instalment of interest and sinking fund on the three proposals— £l4OO. He suggested that the three proposals should be, submitted separately to the ratepayers at a date to be fixed later.
The estimates for the various works wore as follows: Recoating, widening to 16ft., and surfacing with bitumen Mountain Road, from Inglewood borough to the Waipuku stream (456 chains), £7752; from Inglewood borough to Waiongona stream (198 chains). £3366: Junction Road. King Road, to Waiwakaiho river, 16ft. wide (140 chains), £2380; Inglewood borough to Kaimata, 14ft. wide (350 chains), £5250; regrading Vickers’ Hill. Junction Road, and entrance to Bristol Road, £250; regrading at Kaimata and various other places. £302; total. £19,300, any surplus to be used to extend the reooatino’ and surfacing proportionately/ along the Junction and Lepper-Egmont roads. Junction Road, ferro-concrete bridge over Ngatoro stream (84ft?) £l6OO, and over Maketawa stream (.80 ft.) £l5OO. This will not construct the bridges, but is subject to a Government grant.
Tn speakin? to the motion, the ehairman said: ‘’This year will see most of the side roads in the county metalled, and T think the time is opportune to submit proposals for a main roads improvement loan. Tt is impossime 10 build nrtw roads out of ■♦ates. and no county in Taranaki has attempted to do so. I feel quite confident that every ratepayer realises that the present system of main road construction will not carry the present dav traffic, and unit
some mom modern svstem of road , is adopted I can see no possibility of reducing the present rate. During the past two and a half years the council has expended on these par- ; ticular portions over £9OOO, or £212 ner mile per annum, and only two miles ' of road will be la.id down permanently .by th? end of our third year. This ; amount represents a rate of nearly 2d jin the £ on unimproved value, while 9-1 Gd will pay interest and sinking fund on the proposed loan. With these roads, which carry the heaviest of our traffic, off our hands, we should be able to reduce the general rate by at- least Id in the £.”
After detailing the 111011104?! in general use in laying down bituminous roads, the chairman proceeded: “Every progressive body in New Zealand is going in for better roads. The Government encourage it. material evidence of which appears in the recent, grant of £5OO on the mountain roads. Under the Main Highways Act. the Government will contribute towards the cost of construction and reconstruction of main arterial roads built to an approved standard. T have made provision for this is my proposals by using any surplus of loan money and Government assistance wo may receive, in extending the work on the main roads as far as the money will go, provided that the Government do not insist on their contribution being used for the purpose of reducing th° loan. With our present plant it will be possible to complete the proposed; work in two seasons. “The interest on this loan could be paid out of the general account, and might appeal to a few ratepayers, but T prefer to levy a special rate for this purpose, and leave the amount of general rate required to the good judgment of councillors who may from ?imc to time be entrusted with the care of the county. The present councillors are heavy ratepayers, and will all be pleased when wo can see our way clear to reduce the present rate. Until provision is made for the reconstruction of the main roads on a more modern system, if will not be possible for any council to reduce the present rates.” Regarding the concrete bridges, the chairman said these two bridges were unsafe for traffic, and will have to be rebuilt in the near future. The easiest wav for the ratepayers to rebuild those bridges was to raise a loan over a long period. Tf the ratepayers rejected the proposal, the council would ho compelled to rebuild them, and they have power to raise the loan by special order, end need not refer the matter to the ratepavers at all. The third proposal was new county offices, regarding which Mr. Corkill said: “We have our section, and the interest and sinking fund on this loan is only about equal to the rent that we are paving for our present offices. Tt is absolutely essential that we should have a strong-room for the safe keeping of our books and other important papers. Interest on this • loan conoid be paid as at present out. of the general ac-
Cr. Jones, in seconding, strongly supported the proposals. He would have liked the proposals to have included the road past Ka.ima.ta. as he thought that road carried traffic only seconq to the Mountain Road.
Cr. Stewart also supported. Ho said if they once got the main roads laid down permanently, they would be able to nay more attention to the side roads, thus effecting a considerable saving. He did not. think they could look to .the Government for the loan money,
as under the Government’s limit confining them to £5OOO per year it would take too long to do the work. He favored going outside for the money and pushing on with the work. Cr. Laurence said that a year ago he would not have supported the proposal, as he held the opinion that properly laid down metalled roads would carry all the traffic, but lie had changed his opinion since, as the result of carefully watching the effect of the traffic. Cr. Capper was in hearty accord with the proposal, but he did not think it went far enough. The Manganui bridge, on the Junction Road, should also have been included.
Cr. Hunter deprecated putting all the expenditure on the main roads. These should be done first, but a road improvement loan should include some of the by-roads, which would in the future perhaps carry as much traffic as some of the main roads. He considered that once the main roads were in order there might be difficulty in getting ratepayers to sanction a loan for the by-roads. He could not see his way to support the proposal unless it was extended to some of the by-roads.
Cr. Grieve stressed the point that the East riding had been omitted. Their chief reason for joining the Inglewood .■county was to have something done to the Zig-zag, which was the bugbear of the district. He favored the roads being tar-sealed, but thought there was a danger of the East riding giving a block vote against the loan, as at present outlined, because his riding was getting no benefit.
The chairman said that while some of the councillors considered that it did not go far enough, he took the point of view that it would help all of them out of their trouble. He was doubtful, however, about the Government contribution. Tf this could he used in carrving out additional work they would be able to extend the permanent road as far as the Zig-zag on the east, and also to Kaimiro. There was. however, the possibility that the Government might compel them to utilise its contribution in reducing the amount of loan. Even ii thev did, it would reduce the rate by probably nearly one-half. He pointed out that they had to avoid being saddled with a heavy loan over a short term. He had left the Manganui bridge out. because with the repairs just executed, it would carry the traffic for some time. They could raise another loan later when money was more plentiful.
After further discussion the proposal was adopted unanimously.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19221206.2.52
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1922, Page 6
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,472BETTER ROADS. Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1922, Page 6
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taranaki Daily News. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.