GRANTS FOR ROAD DAMAGE

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27795, 21 October 1955, Page 14

GRANTS FOR ROAD DAMAGE

BOARD REFUSES APPLICATION AUCKLAND REQUEST FOR £40,000 (New Zealand Press. Association) WELLINGTON, October 20. Urban and rural interests clashed on the National Roads Board today when for the first time in the board s 18-months history, the matter of a major financial grant to a city for ‘extraordinary” damage to public roads was raised. The request came from Auckland and was for three grants totalling £40.000. Two were to enable the City Council to repair damage to streets by trolley buses and other heavy vehicles. One was for £16,500 to strengthen a road out of a quarry operated by a commercial firm at Mount Wellington, an Auckland suburb. The board deferred consideration of the last request. It declined the other two against the opposition of the sole principal association representative, Mr N. H. Moss, of Stratford. Discussion centred on the meaning of the term “extraordinary.” Previous grants under this heading have been to rural local authorities to help them finance the strengthening of roads damaged by heavy industrial traffic such as that from a sawmill or coalmine.

Members said they understood that a principle was at stake and that if the Auckland request was granted, others would follow from cities elsewhere whose streets were being damaged by 12-ton electric trolley buses. The chairman (Mr W. F. Young), who is Deputy Commissioner of Works, the two representatives of the Counties* Association, Messrs W. A. Lee and N. Al Rattray, and Messrs J. B. Cullen (transport operators), P. W. Breen (private motorists), H. B. Smith (Commissioner of Transport), and D. M. Grover (Ministry of Works), opposed the request. Mf 5 Moss said Auckland streets were being damaged by an industry—the transport industry—which was not under the control of the council.