PAREMATA BRIDGE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1935, Page 4

PAREMATA BRIDGE

ANONYMOUS ATTACKS

ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING

NO OPPOSITION VOICED

A well-attended and enthusiastic meeting of. ratepayers was held at Plimmerton last night to discuss the new-proposals for the Paremata Bridge as advanced by the Hutt County Council and the Main Highways Board. Ratepayers were present from Wellington as well as from Plimmerton, Pukerua Bay, and the surrounding district. During the meeting severe criticism was levelled .at some ratepayers for what was stated to be unfair attacks on the Hutt County Council and the councillor for the riding. It was further stressed that not one ratepayer who was opposed to the new proposals had signed his name to any letter, or circular, but had preferred to remain in the dark. At the meeting there was neither voice nor wood of opposition to the proposals.

. Mr. H. Mayer presided, and on the platform were Messrs. R. L. Button (councillor for the Taupo Riding), W. H. Bennett, W. Bourke, and G. M. Henderson.

\ The chairman referred to the demand of the ratepayers for the bridge, as seen by the 91 per cent, poll in favour last June, and he urged them not to be misled by anonymous propaganda, designed to beat the , unanimous wishes of the people. Mr. Bennett, speaking as a ratepayer at Plimmerton for 38 years, told the audience that the proposition before them was a sound one. He discussed the difficulties of the last 27 years in the effort to get a bridge at Paremata, and eulogised the Hutt County Council and the authorities concerned for the statesmanship they had shown in bringing forward the present proposals which he. asked the meeting to support. unanimously. Mr. Henderson (Khandallah), exInspector of Native Schools, and secretary of the Pukerua Bay Ratepayers' Association, assured the meeting that his association had decided unanimously in favour of the bridge proposals. They could rely on 95 per cent, of the votes at Pukerua Bay. REASON FOR ALTERED, PLANS. Mr. Button outlined every detail of the proposal. He made it quite clear that the original loan proposal for £11,000 was for the bridge, with a contribution for supervision of the road, but that- it was always the council's intention to construct the road under relief labour. When it was found, however, that owing to changed economic conditions,, the relief labour was not available in the district, it was arranged, in consultation with the Unemployment Board and the Minister of Public Works, that tenders should be called for the road, as well as for the bridge. As the road under contract would have had to be paid for— wages on the road under relief labour would have been paid ;by the Unemployment Board—it was naturally found that the original loan of £ 11,000 was not sufficient. It was then that the Hutt County Council approached the Minister of Public Works for a. subsidy and the Minister arranged for a meeting of the Hutt County Council with the chairman of the Main Highways Board. , The outcome of this meeting and a further meeting with the board was the present proposal for a ferroconcrete bridge. Mr. Button traversed all the details of the scheme and advised the ratepayers that the council had that day received from the Public Works Department a plan showing the position of the two miles of road from Plimmerton to Pukerua Bay. The chairman expressed the thanks of the ratepayers for the generous donation. by the Walker family of the three miles of land for the road Mr. Button, in reply to a question, said that he had the authority of the Main Highways Board to state that there would be no delay in getting on with the work after the necessary formalities had been complied with. The following resolution was carried unanimously: "This meeting heartily and unanimously agrees with the proposals for the loan for £7000 for the Paremata Bridge and road, and will do its utmost to make the poll next Wed-, nesday an unqualified success, and calls on all ratepayers to vote for the loan."