RURAL ROADS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 206, 1 September 1938, Page 12

RURAL ROADS.

DEVELOPMENT WORK. IMPORTANCE TO COUNTRY. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. The importance of good roads to the rural development of the country was stressed by the Minister. He recalled that early last summer he announced that an arrangement had been made for a special allocation of £500,000 for extending road metalling activities in backblock areas where settlers were virtually still pioneering. The Minister said the plan instituted wae the first real attempt ever made to deal adequately with the difficulties and hardships of these settlers. "In all, an amount of £1,587,360 (gross) was available last financial year for the betterment and metalling of country roade, and of this, a sum of £1,297,781 (gross) was expended," he said. "The actual net expenditure, after allowing for credits from other votes, was £1,126,757, as against £913,720 for the previous year. By the close of the season on June 30, 600 miles of settlement roads were formed, reformed, or widened, and 1006 miles were newly metalled, the corresponding figures for the preceding period being 465 miles formed and 702 miles metalled." A great deal of bridging and culverting was also done during the year, some •123 new bridges totalling 10,710 feet having been erected with grants or subsidies, and 71,570 feet of culverts installed.

In reviewing major works>of construction the Minister mentioned the Coronation Drive on the Waitakeree, which had been partly completed. "This has proved eo popular with motorists that complaints have been made regarding insufficiency of parking , epace," he said. In the King Country work on the Taumarunui-Tokaanu Road, giving a direct connection from Taumarunui to Lake Taupo and on the Waiouru-Tokaanu Road, giving a direct north-south route on the eastern side of the mountain), Ruapehu, Tongariro and Xgauruhoe, had been continued steadily.