PUBLIC OPINION.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 6593, 22 January 1916, Page 4

PUBLIC OPINION.

Cameron Road.

(To the Editor.)

Sir. —There appears to be only two courses by which our small borough can be saved from severe financial difficulty, i.e.. a curtailment ot expenditure, by'the Council or placing our affairs in the handa of a Government Receiver under Public Works. The off-hand manner in which Councillors talk of further loans is simply appalling.

True, we have a white elephant of enormous proportions to provide for in this Cameron Road. As we ca-.i neither kill, sell, nor give it away, we had better starve it a little until better times: Justice to other parts of the Borough demands that further expenditure on Cameron UoaJ should be confined to an attempt to grass it, thi3 being the only possible remedy for the dust nuisance. The middie of the road is not used by vehicles at present, and is capable of receiving grass seed, aj it hm rot been rolled as yet. A few obstacles would keep the traffic to the sides until the grass takes well, and assistance could be given by copious spraying. This could be proceeded with at once. Tie sides could be grassed later in turn by batricading the avenue corners teir,£ porarily. Ultimately the propostd strips of metal could be placed upo-i the grass either at the sides or in the centre ot 'he road. This would abate the dust nuisance, and make this approach to our town attractive.

The idea of trees up the middle of the road beiog a protection from the dust nuisance is feeble, as they would take from 10 to 15 years to grow sufficiently. They would be an obstruction to traffic, and the initial cost will be at least £5 per chain.

The past Council would not listen to the suggestion that the top uoil should be placed on the surface; the result is that most of the roadway i» of sterile material on which gra s will not take readily.

Mr Editor, look at our grassy lanes leading towards the- main roadway. With their well-grassed sides and unmetalled centres do their inhabitants complain of the dust fiend? Only when it reaches them from the desert waste of the once much belauded, now universally condemned, hroadway of the Cameron Road, the formation of which has co enormously exceeded the original estimate,.—! am, etc ,

W. R. TURNER Taurangfl, January, 21st 1916.