COUNTY ROADING

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXII, Issue 4640, 16 May 1938, Page 4

COUNTY ROADING

GROWING LIABILITY. INCREASE IN MOTOR CARS. MINISTER’S FUTURE AIMS. A statement defining his attitude toward the future maintenance of county roads, and also dealing with the five-year plan for providing access for backblocks settlers, was made yesterday by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple.

Mr. Semple said that at Ngatea last week he had referred to the fiveyear plan, but he had advanced no scheme for sealing all the highways of the North Island. The five-year plan aimed at providing access for 13,000 farmers by forming, reforming and metalling roads. In half a summer about 1000 miles of such roads had been provided to give access to farmers, and he hoped that before the wet season, at least 1400 or 1500 would be completed. A sum of £500,000 was allocated for the last financial year, and if it were possible to get £1,000,000 this year, the back of the work might be broken. He was pleased at the progress made so far.

“Deputations asked me to subsidise the sealing of country roads,” the Minister added. “I said I had no legal power to do so, but it seemed to me, that the increased motor traffic on the roads had imposed on the counties a greater and recurring liability in the matter of maintenance, and the sensible thing to do would be to tackle the paving question, The tremendous number of cars going on the roads made the metal road almost obsolete, and the question of subsidising for paving would have to be considered in the future.”

The Minister said he had had many requests from counties that the question of liabilities incurred in the past in connection with highways should be considered with a view to giving the counties relief from their expenditure. He explained that he had no power to do this, and mentioned that since he took over 400 miles of main highways had been declared State highways, saving the counties some £125,000 a year, or about £BOO,OOO, it was estimated, in five years.

The counties should never have been called upon to contribute toward these main highways, which should have been State undertakings, in the same way as the railways, which were used by everybody, he continued. Had that been the case, the counties would have had thousands of pounds more to spend on other roads, and perhaps the five-year plan would not have been necessary. The question of reviewing liabilities that counties had incurred in the past, however, was one of future policy.