GRADE TOO STEEP

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 273, 13 August 1932, Page 5

GRADE TOO STEEP

Proposed New Stock Route

COUNCIL MEMBERS’ VIEWS

Having decided that to attempt to construct a special stock route from Johnsonville to the abattoirs would be a waste of money, the Makara County Council resolved at its meeting yesterday to take no further action in the matter of finding a suitable way of forming such a track. The question was brought up at the monthly meeting of the council held yesterday, when letters from the Wellington Automobile Club, the Public Works Department, and the Society for the Prevention.of Cruelty to Animals were received. The Automobile Club’s letter referred to a survey made recently with the object of finding a route from Johnsonville to the abattoirs alternative to the main road. It pointed out that half the cost of the survey had been met by the club. The Public Works Department letter, written in reply to the council’s previously-expressed views, asked: “If a track 10 feet wide is not considered by your council to be a suitable width for droving cattle, would you please advise what width your council would desire?” “I am satisfied, after a life-long connection with stock, that a suitable graded road could be cut along the route surveyed,” wrote Mr. G. Mitchell, president of the S.P.C.A., of Wellington. He suggested that the width be 15 feet with the fences 10 feet back from the made track. “It is a question of the grade,” said the county chairman, Mr. E. Windley, after the letters had been received. “Stock could never be driven down that surveyed route.” Councillor C. H. Phillips, a new member, asked the nature of the surveyed route. “It’s like this,” said Councillor IL W. Bothamley, placing the tips of his fingers on the council table and forming a steep slope with his hand. “I’d like to see them drive cattle down; they’d go over the bank,” was another councillor’s contribution to the discussion.