POHANGINA COUNTY COUNCIL

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3479, 13 December 1926, Page 12

POHANGINA COUNTY COUNCIL

ENGINEER’S REPORT,

At Saturday’s meeting of the Pohangina County Council, the engineer (Mr. D. Watson) reported on tho work done during the past month as follows:

During tho past month the work carried out had been in the nature of repairing various flood-damaged roads. In many places where the road had washed out it bad been necessary, in order to obtain a reasonable width, to cut back the bank, build up the road and plant willows and poplar trees on the outside.

Although there were several goodsized jobs that required attending to as soon as possible, most of the minor damage had been put' right, but the exploiting of such necessary work meant getting behind with the scheme of operations for the current year. As, for instance, no stone-crushing had been done and very little metal, with the exception of what had been used for patching, had been carted during the past ten weeks. In connection with a subsidy on the cost of putting the roads in order, which was applied for some time back, the chairman and myself, with the member for the district, Mr. Gordon Elliot, waited on the Minister of Public Works, and on a later date we also waited on the Engineer-in-Chief, with the object of getting some definite understanding, so that we might arrive at the amount of a loan required for constructional work. When this has been arranged and we get the consent of the ratepayers, a start will bo made to build a concrete culvert and open up the Main Road in the township.

Awahou Riding.—The roads had all been practically cleared and in most cases the surfaces were in good order. There were several bad breaks, where wash-outs had occurred, that would take some time to repair. Coal Creek Riding.—The surfaceman was employed with horse and dray carting, and spreading repair metal. Some trouble had been experienced in keeping open the road at Ngaputihi, as the face of the hill was continually creeping on to the road, but at present it had been cut back and was in reasonably good order. Mangaone Riding.—Some repairs had been effected to a bridge on Valley Road by driving three piles and replacing the cap and sheeting on one end with totara timber. A fair amount of improvement had been carried out on several of the roads. Two pipe culverts had been put in on Pinnis road, which in several places had been widened out and built up on the outside.

Mangapikopiko Riding.—Some repair metal had boon carted and spread on some of the roads, slips cleared off and watnrtables attended to. Pohangina Riding.—The creek at Te Awa had scoured to such a depth that it had been necessary to go on with the concrete protection work, as any further erosion would have caused considerable damage to the culvert. There had been no opportunity of doing anything towards improving the lower end of the Branch road, owing to the scarcity of labour. To Awa road had bo.en cleared of slips and a small amount of metal put on.

1 Tamakl Riding:.—Repair metal had been carted and general maintenance work carried out, including repairs to bridge on Mr. Arbon’s road. Tlmutoi Riding.—About 100 yards of metal bad been carted and spread on Makoura road. A metal pit had been opened out on Mr. Alexander’s property and the road to his house metalled. A length of Norsow'ood road, from Mr. Hart’s to Coal Creek bridge, was at present being trimmed up with the grader and metalled. Treasurer's Report.

The treasurer’s report showed accounts as follow: —Cemetery account credit, £73 Its 4d; loan account credit, £1920 Os 3d: County fund account debit, £llBO Ss Id. After the passing of accounts for payment totalling £604 18s 3d, the county fund account debit was increased to £1785 6s 4d.