FEILDING-AWAHURI ROAD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 118, 20 April 1931, Page 4

FEILDING-AWAHURI ROAD.

COST OF CUTTING. CURIOUS EARTH FORMATION. Motorists and others who have passed through the new cutting on the Feilding-Awahuri Hoad which the Manawutu County Council has recently completed under one of the unemployment schemes, on which a large number of Feilding men secured relief work, will perhaps have wondered at the bend which has been made when there was ample room in the land acquired to make the cutting perfectly straight. The reason for this was one of the facts ventilated at the Manawatu County Council offices on Friday when members of the Highways Board paid their annual visit there. The County Council chairman (Cr Barber) in bringing the matter forward, recalled that the work had been estimated to cost £I2OO, the allocation being £IOOO from the Highways Board nnd £2OO from the council. The council had sent in plans for the work with the road running in a straight line through the bend, but the board had refused its sanction to this plan owing to the depth of the cutting required on a straight road being too great and had put the road through with the present bend in it. Cr Perrett; And there has been much adverse comment even since it was done.

Cr Barber: That is so, but the point we have to bring before the board is that, through meeting trouble with a soft puggy clay, the cost of the work was forced up to £1650 anil we want to know where we stand. Air Bond, the Manawatu County engineer, explained that the material from tho excavation had been utilised in bank formation on the sides of the road, and it would now be easy to bring the road up to highway standard. A sample of the “p u £?” that had caused the extra cost in the cutting was placed before the board mem hoi’s at this stage, Mr Furkert. chairman of the board, stating that it looked like mud from the bottom of a lagoon when the river bad been flowing over the flats years ago. Referring to the matter of the cost of the cutting, Air Furkert said the board did not want to rush into any extra expense, but it also did not want to keep the council down to the price of £IOOO.

Cr Barber: We really only took the work on to help the Feilding unemployed.

Mr Furkert intimated that the board would go into the matter of meeting the council in the extra cost.