OMAKA ROAD BOARD.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 55, 10 March 1910, Page 8

OMAKA ROAD BOARD.

The Omaka Road Board met this morning, when there were present: Messrs A. Mackay (chairman), R. Ham, and J. Bary. HAULAGE RATES. Several letters were received from •carters complaining of the haulage ?rate charged by the Board, expressing the opinion that the £10 was excessive. A deputation consisting of Messrs Gosling, E. S. Parker and C Goodman waited on the Board.

Mr Gosling said that the £10 his firm would have to pay for each, of the waggons they worked would be too much. Then there was a likelihood of the other local bodies imposing a tax as well. Of course if the tax was enforced it would simply mean that the farmers would have to pay it in the end. They had waited on the Board'in the hope of arriving at some satisfactory settlement of the question. Mr Parker suggested that the best way to getting over the difficulty ■would be to impose a tax of £10 upon the different firms' plants. Mr, Goodman said it might happen that ;a waggon would make only one trip ;'into the country, and it would hot be fair to make a charge of £10 for that trip.. | Mr Bary said that he was very mucbj in sympathy with the waggonowners, and thought it would be inconsistent to charge the lorries and timber waggons the same license fees. > 'He thought that a proper solution of the problem would be effected by a conference of lorry and timber -waggon owners and members of the Omaka Board. He thought that with the advent of th© Wairau bridge the lorry industry would be considerably increased, and that the new conditions would see the abolition of the eight-horse waggons. The lorry was to be the mode of conveyance for the future. The conference <could determine a scale of fees to be charged throughout the district. He thought that the present license fee would ruin the hauling' industry. He moved, and Mr Ham seconded, that a conference, of all the lorry owners and the Omaka Road Board be held on the Wednesday previously to the next meeting of the Board to discuss the heavy haulage rats.—Carried. Mr. Bary moved, and the Chairman seconded, that the sum of £10 be collected from Gosling and Son and the Mclvenzie Carrying Company, which, together with the sum of £3 already received from Flanders and Parson, shall entitle those owners to cart in the Omaka road district until the result of the conference is known. —Carried. DILLON'S POINT ROAD. The Inspector was instructed to do the necessary work on the Dillon's Point Road at Batty's, the work to be dono with the grader. The Boa I'd then rose.