Tainui Street Work

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 September 1949, Page 3

Tainui Street Work

Sir.—How a body of responsible business men can stand by and see a comparatively good road torn up as Tainui street is being done, is beyond me. I have been expecting some comment but apparently it is nobody’s business and nobody cares. There are jobs which should not be done piecemeal and this is one of them. At one time Tainui street was flat from kerb to kerb. A Mr O’Donnell decided •to improve it by giving it a bit of camber. No doubt he did over-do it. Now the present council decides to remove the camber and, urged on by some of the younger members, the engineer switches his staff to it at the expense of other more urgent and important works in the borough.

It is proposed to do a short section only in the meantime. What is going to happen at the Grogan lane end of the first section—a nice little “jump up’’ or just an easy grade? What is going to happen when they reach the intersection of Puketahi street? The eastern footpath is naturally higher than the western side and these two cannot possibly be brought to the same level.

The excavator cost us £3500 and is quite useful for the work it was built for, but to put a nine-ton machine to the task of ripping up a tar-sealed road laid over limestone rocks is surely wrong. The section torn up so far is cheese compared to what is ahead of it. Hundreds of yards of good binding material have been carted away, and hundreds of yards of round beach metal have been carted back, plus clay and water! as if we don’t get enough of the last-mentioned) which no amount of rolling and grading and running over will ever consolidate. This job should have been let by contract and work continued “round the clock” (especially on a main arterial road) instead of oh a 40-hour week basis, less two stops for morning and afternoon tea, etc. I understand the council is “cutting out” a grant made by the Main Highways’ Board out of the borough’s share of the petrol tax. If this is so, why not throw the job back on to the P.W.D. who have, or could make available, the proper machinery. I would not like to hear the “flow” if the Minister of Works was to pass by. The council has heaps of work of a more urgent nature in the borough within the range of its employees and its limited gear—Yours etc. GOOD ROADS i Greymouth, September 26. “I. have no comment to make, other than the time-honoured one of Mr Asquith, ‘Wait and see.’” stated the Mayor (Mr F. F. Boustridge) when the above letter was referred to him.