COUNTY ROADS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 113, 9 April 1930, Page 2

COUNTY ROADS.

# (To the Editor). : Sir, —I read in yesterday’s issue of your paper that at the last meeting of the Kairanga County Council, Councillor Small said “the time is ripe to demand a grant from the Main Highways Board for a portion of the BunnythorpeKairanga Road, even if for two* miles only, from Nathan’s corner to Rongotea Road.” Now, sir, I have recently had occasion to use the main South Road from the Manawatu bridge towards Wellington and I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that its condition is a disgrace to the authorities responsible for its maintenance. Yet is not this road under the care of the Kairanga County Council? And does not that body collect rates from the residents of that locality? And is not this road used to a much greater extent than the Bunnythorpe-Kairanga Road ? I think the answer to all these questions is undoubtedly in the affirmative. Why, then, does Cr. Small think he has reason “to demand” from the main highways fund —to which we all contribute —a grant to enable the council to tar-seal what is after all only a side road. Surely the members of the council must realise that it is the motorists who contribute to the main highways fund and that, therefore, it is primarily the motorists in general who should benefit from the fund; and they can best benefit by having the main roads, which they must U6e, attended to first. In addition to ■which it must be remembered that the burden of maintaining the main roads would fall very much more heavily than it does on the county councils were it not for the main highways fund provided by the motorists.—l am,'btc., pRQ B0N() p UBLICO