ROAD MAINTENANCE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 15, 12 October 1927, Page 7

ROAD MAINTENANCE

ALLOCATION EXCEEDED

Masterton, October 11.

The cost of maintaining the Welling-ton-Napier highway is causing the Masterton County Council some concern, and an endeavour is being made to obtain an extra grant for the work from the Main Highways Board. The clerk (Mr. J. C. D. Mackley) advised that he had written to the Main Highways Board advising that the amount provided for the road for the current year had been over-spent by £l4. Last year the cost of maintaining the road had amounted to £1558. Up to August 14, 1927, £1492 had been spent on the road, while the estimate up to March 31, 1928, was £1550, leaving £5B for the balance of the year, and that sum had since been spent. The clerk had therefore asked the board for a further £650 to be placed on the estimates.

“This is a road I consider we should have to watch,” remarked Mr. H. H. Mawley, who went on to say that the road was going to cause an increasing expenditure to the county’, and in his opinion would need tar sealing. The clerk said that the heavy wear on the road was due to the fact that it was being used in preference to the Mauriceville-Mount Bruce highway. It was costing £l3O per mile ,and while a lot of widening work had been carred out before its time, the contractor now understood the position. The action of the clerk in writing the board was endorsed.