NEW GRADERS SUGGESTED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 190, 13 July 1936, Page 8

NEW GRADERS SUGGESTED.

IN HOROAVHENUA COUNTY. Recommendations for the acquisition of two new road graders at a total estimated cost of £I4OO were placed before the monthly meeting of the Horowhemia County Council, at Levin, on Saturday, by tlie engineer (Mr J. T. M. Brewster). The report in which the recommendations were made stated that the graders were each operated by one man. Two men wore now required on the council’s grader. The writer estimated that 100 days’ work with the two new machines, as against the same working time with the two-men typo, would show a saving over all equal to the cost of one of the new machines. One could be ■ stationed at Tokomaru and the other at Levin. For one machine a tractor now owned by the council could be used, but the other would have to be entirely new.

The chairman (Mr G. A. Monk) said that a second grader was required. Corrugations had developed on roads and had not been attended to immediately, with the result that the position had become progressively worse as time went on. It would be for the engineer to show that tlie graders would be efficient and economical when all things were considered. Personally, he had the feeling that not enough grading had been done, and on that score the purchase of a second grader would be economically sound. One could he stationed in the southern end of the district and the other in the northern part, so that travelling time would he largely eliminated. Cr L. H. Best urged that action should not be precipitate, as the council did not know what the position would be in a short time. Certain highways were being taken over as State roads, and there was also the possibility of amalgamation of counties.

The chairman thought that there would not be compulsion in regard to amalgamation. The point aimed at, to his mind, was that the smaller bodies within the area of others would he amalgamated with the larger ones. The report was referred to the works committee with power to act.