DAY'S BAY ROAD

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 110, 10 May 1923, Page 3

DAY'S BAY ROAD

10 IHB EDIIOB. Sir, —In your report of the proceedings of what took place when the Hutt County Council renewed its application to the Minister of Public Works to set up a committee to apportion the coat of the upkeep of the Day's Bay road between Petone and Eastbourne, the Minister (Mr. Coates) is reported to have expressed surprise and criticised the proposal made by the Hutfc County Council that Eastbourne should bear 35 per cent, of the cost of the upkeep of the road. The Minister stated the suggestion was an outrageous one, particularly so now that Eastbourne had entered into heavy obligations through the purchase of a new steamer. The chairman of the Hutt County Council, while defending his council, admitted that he realised that it was asking too much of Eastbourne. The Minister's outburst and the chairman's admission indicate that .neither has a grip of the facts. Evidently the Minister does not know that for some years pas,t the whale of the building materials' for this progressive borough of Eastbourne, vide building statistics of the borough, aB well as the whole of the domestic supplies, have been roadborne, and it is this exceptionally heavy traffic that has put the road in its present state. Probably tho starting point of the traffic was "Wellington, and'consequently Wellington should contribute, but so should Eastbourne. I can only concludo that the Minister is under a misapprehension and believes that Bastbourne's building and domestic supplies have been sea-borne, otherwise he would not have adopted his present attitude of setting Eastbourne on ,a pedestal as an injured party. Why I concluded that the chairman of tho Hutt County Council did not have a grip of his facts is that he did not put these facts before the Minister. I feel convinced that the only equitable method of apportioning the cost of the road is by the setting up of a commission, which I trust the Minister will yet sanction.—l am, etc., HUTT COUNTY KATEPATER. 10th. May.