MUNICIPAL METHODS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 59, 5 March 1909, Page 4

MUNICIPAL METHODS.

Under the above heading the Ngav Zealand Times publishes the folloAA'ing, to the principle oi: Avhich many of our readers will be able to give a local application:—"The attention of a Times representative Avas directed to a sample of municipal methods jas applied to street maintenance. Recently tlie City Council decided to lay doAvn Lew gutters and re-kerb Moturoa and Pipitea Streets. Tho work Avas done in a very rough and unsatisfactory Avay. The kerbing Avas built out from the footpath for three inches, leaving an unfilled gap. In places the kerbstones were raised above the level of the path, and in others built below it. The job is very unsightly, and is positively dangerous to pedestrians passing along that Avay at night. 'They wouldn't stand that sort of thing in Ohakune,' Avas the comment of an indignant local resident." But they appear to stand a good deal of it in Blenheim. There is far too much of the "rough and ready" in our street management. _ Not long ago some pipes Avere laid across Scott Street at its southern end, and the excavation has never been properly, filled in, though some of the dirt taken out still lies in an unsightly heap close to the work. A load of gravel Avas also dumped doAvn on the corner of the street, and has remained there, an obstruction to traffic ever since, and it is being scattered about the road by Avheeled traffic which unavoidably passes over it. Then near the bowling green gas pipes were laid across the road to a heAv residence, and the excavation was so badly filled in that a gutter now intersects the road. But these are only trivial instances of our municipal methods. A better example of "how not to do it" exists in Henry Street, where riven bed shingle has been piled along the centre of the road, forming ah impassable barrier to all but the heaviest traffic. But perhaps this is merely preparatory to another illustration of how not to make asphalt.