CONCRETE POLES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1938, Page 6

CONCRETE POLES

EXPECTED TO SUPERSEDE HARDWOOD STATEMENT BY MINISTER (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, August 1. After exhaustive investigation and test, the Public Works Department has evolved a type of reinforced concrete power pole which is expected to supersede the timber hardwood pole now being imported from Australia. This was indicated by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon R. Semple, when he met members of the Banks Peninsula Power Board today. The Minister said the supply of hardwood poles from Australia had been so depleted that Australia was said to be two years behind . its orders. In fact, Australia was nearing the end of its own supplies. This shortage had badly tied up.the work of reticulation in New Zealand, particularly on two major jobs—the line to the West Coast freim Canterbury and the Dunedin-In-vercargill line. The Government had been faced with the problem of building its own poles and of securing a type which would be light enough for transport over difficult areas and still solid enough to bear the load of wires, with other incidental stresses such as occurred in bad weather. The Public Works Department had now succeeded in getting a design which the Minister thought would do the job at a cost not much different from that of the hardwood pole. Mr Semple assured the board that these State-manufactured poles would be made available to power boards, as well as for departmental undertakings.