HARDWOOD POWER POLES

Evening Star, Issue 23025, 2 August 1938, Page 1

HARDWOOD POWER POLES

AUSTRALIAN SUPPLY DWINDLING REINFORCED CONCRETE TYPE EVOLVED [Per Uxixed Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, August 1. After exhaustive investigation and test, the Public Works Department has evolved a type of reinforced concrete power pole which is expected to supersede the timber hardwood pole now being imported from Australia. This was indicated by the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) when he met members of the Banks Peninsula Power Board to-day. i The Minister said that supplies from Australia had been so depleted that Australia was said to be two years behind its orders. In fact, Australia was nearing the end of its own supplies. This shortage had badly tied up the work of reticulation in New Zealand, particularly on two major jobs—the line to the West Coast from Canterbury and the Dunedin-Invercargill line. The Government had been faced with the problem of building its own poles and of securing a type which would be light enough for transport over difficult areas and still solid enough to bear the load of wires with other incidental stresses such as occurred in bad weather. The Public Works Department had now succeeded in getting a design which the Minister thought would do the job at a cost not much different from that of the hardwood pole. Mr Semple assured the board that these State-manu-factured poles would be made available to power boards as well as for departmental undertakings.