PUBLIC WORKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 145, 22 June 1938, Page 5

PUBLIC WORKS

THE MINISTER'S TOUR

TAR-SEALING OF ROADS (By Telegraph—Press Association.) TIMARU, June 21. A proposal for a national scheme for tar-sealing roads after the completion of State highways was outlined by the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) when he met the Mackenzie County Council at Fairlie today. He intimated that a plan could be drawn similar to the five-year plan for improving back-country roads. At present he had no legal authority to grant subsidies to county councils for tar-sealing work and that law would have to be altered. Roads for tar-sealing would be marked in order of urgency. He maintained that the modern tar-sealed road in New Zealand was as good as any in the world. There was still as much as 4000 miles of State highways to be tar-sealed, and they would be done as soon as possible. The Minister said the metalled road was a thing of the past and the next problem for consideration was to end that liability and pave principal roads throughout the Dominion. The Minister is to visit Lake Tekapo on Thursday, when he will inspect the site of the proposed dam, which will raise the lake to conserve water for the Waitaki hydro works. If the scheme was proceeded with, the Minister said today, a start would probably be made in four years' time. Most of the present Tekapo village will have to be moved to a new site and a new bridge will have to be built in conjunction with the dam.