ROAD MAKING PROCESS.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20828, 11 April 1933, Page 10

ROAD MAKING PROCESS.

TRIAL IN CITY. CITY COUNCIL'S DECISION. A recommendation by the Works Committee that the new "honing" process of road-making which has been developed locally by British Pavements, Ltd., should be carried out on Barbadoes street from Moorhouse avenue to Cashel street was adopted by the Christchurch City Council last night. The contract is to be let to the company at a cost of £585, The committee reported that in anticipation of the necessity for improving or reconstructing certain of the city streets during the present year, consideration had been given to a process known as "honin 6" j -x • ■ "In constructing a road it is impossible to get a perfect surface from rolling," added the committee. "Any irregularity with a fastmoving vehicle travelling over it causes a heavy impact beyond the irregularity, and this impact in time will form a hollow with a rise beyond it. This process being repeated indefinitely causes the corrugations and general unevenness of the road surface and it is particularly marked locally where the roads generally are only lightly metalled and usually are built on a clay subsoil, which becomes moist and soft by the end of the winter. It is therefore obvious that if the impact can be eliminated or substantially reduced the formation of corrugations will be reduced to a minimum and a correspondingly better road will be more cheaply maintained. It would arjpear from present indications that the 'honing' process is the -most satisfactory method of achieving this result, and is likely to prove one of the most useful road processes adopted for | many years, particularly as far as Christchurch is concerned." Cost of Process. The cost of the process would vary, and depended chiefly on the amount of the mix that was necessary to correct the faults of the road, and would be from a minimum of fid to Is a square yard, compared with the ordinary sealing cost of 3d to 6d a square yard. It should have double the life of ordinary sealing and would give a much better road, eliminating to a great extent the patching, and consequently should prove far cheaper in the end. The portion of Barbadoes street from Moorhouse avenue to Cashel street was a street upon which this process could be carried out successfully, and, moreover, it was in urgent need of attention. The council was not in a position to do the work itself at present, and it was therefore recommended that a contract should be lot to British Pavements, Ltd., the estimated cost being £585. The report was adopted.