WHANGAREI COUNTY COUNCIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8583, 3 June 1891, Page 6

WHANGAREI COUNTY COUNCIL.

AjuRETiNG of the Whangarei County Council wss held in the Council Chambers on May 27. ! Tke meeting lasted up to one o'clock in the miming. Over 100 accounts were passed, aEd so much business was done that your piper would not hold" an account of it. Anong- other resolutions it was decided to rigorously enforce tho by-laws. The Council suffer under a most unusual and anomalous stite of affaire. The traffic has increased teafold, while. the rates have not doubled. Thousands of tons are hauled along the .roads annually without paying a copper to the coiinty. Land along the Great North .Road has increased in value to an enormous ex- : teat. The road gives the land the value, and yet the Council cannot raise a few pounds to mend the road with. The following report explains some of the difficulties they labour under:—• " .Engineer's Report.—To the Chairman pf \ the Wfaangarei County Council.—Sir, — According to' the usual custom, I" herewith submit a report of contracts let and progress made during the year. The total number of contracts let is 33, distributed aa followß:—Hikuranpi Riding, 11; Maunu do., 3; Waipu do., 7; Mangapai do., 4;.Nf?uBguru, 3;' and Manaia do., 5. Of this nutn- , her. 18 are - finished, and 6 are nearly finished ; the remaining 9 include keeping in repairs for twelve months, and therefore will not be finished until the time is up. In five of these contracts the specifications provide for a stretch of road_ to be first put in repair by the doing of certain works, and then afterwards to be kept in* repair. This arrangement appears to work well,- and I would recommend the general adoption of the principle all over the county. To do this in somo of the ridings will, however, absorb the whole of the rates, and hew works must not be thought of. Still, the tinie has arrived when the roads want , a_ gefteral overhaul. The money has been going in new works,"leaving too little to keep. the water-tables, ditches, outlets, etc., iu order. Added to this the enormous rainfall of the past two years has done as much damage to the roads as would have come | about 'in ten year's cf ordinary weather. I may'here state that during the last two years we have had 30 floods, all heavy enough to damage roads and bridges, and smaller Hoods as well. Once during this time the win-fell in sheets lor eight days and nights. Once it rained for nine days, and three times it rained for 11. days at a time. That this •rainfall has damaged the roads and bridges to a serious extent goes without saving. In Hikunngi Riding alone clearing" driftwood away from the bridges and off the roads has cost over £100. In Maunu Riding repairing damages done to bridges has cost close upon auother hundred. Manaia, Waiptr, and Ngiingurualso suffered in pronortion to their means. There was scarcely a bridge spanning a gravelly creek in the. whole county but was more or less undermined and damaged, and several iimall ones were shifted. Th 3 roads have suffered quite as much as the bridges, a.nd landslips alone have cost over £300. Now, considering that the county has control over about 300 miles of formed road and 100 miles of unformed roads, also about 700 bridges and large wooden culverts, and over 1100 pipe culverts, I submit that the following estimate will be rather under than over the truth, namely, that the excessive rainfall has already put the Council to an extra expense of £1000, and that it will take yet another £500 at least to puc the ditches, watertables, etc., in the same order as they were in two years ago. This work will have to donesomehow, and it should be done next spring if the roads are to be kept passable for the wheel traffic, .which has increased about tenfold during the last eight years. Extraordinary traffic: For eight months past the Oouncil has been placed, in a false and very trying position by the traffic on the Hikurangi Road. An amount of traffic has been crowded on to this road during the last eight months that would be equal to about twenty years of the ordinary settlers' traffic. To do the road anv kind of justice, a gang of men should have been kept on. to mend the holes as they occurred. Instead of this, serious consequences have been threatened if any money was spent on the road at'all. The 150 yards in Cheeseman's contract only mended the road halfway between McDonald's Hill and Kaino, and the remainder is now in a bad state. But out near Hikurangi the bottom was completely knocked out of the road in places. When this occurs, a hole that, might be mended_ for one shilling to-day would cost two* shillings to-morrow, and perhaps ten shillings in a week's time. Some of these were so horribly} bad that I took the risk ot Jetting them mended to prevent the traffic from being stopped altogether. The position IS, however,'one that no Council should be placed in. and spme steps should be taken to get out of the difficulty. There is no doubt that the travelling public hold the Council responsible for the state,of the roads, and they will not take want of nioney as an excuse. The general opinion appears to be that the Council should find some other means of raising money, but the roads should be kept in good repair, no matter how they are damaged. In some of the districts, notably Ruatangata East, the settlers have made a step iu the right direction, and collected _ a sum of money to subsidise the Council. The same men have in addition to this, done a lot of work by voluntary labour on their own road. There is no reason why they could not do the same in other places. Mangapai roads: A sawmill, now nearly finished, on the tidal waters of Mangapai, will cause an amount of traffic on the roads in that district they have never been subjected to before. So far, there is nothing to complain of, and any industry so important should be encouraged. Stifl, the by-laws relating to heavy loads may be wanted this winter. Wide tires: I would again earnestly urge upon the Council the wisdom of encouraging wide tires and discouraging narrow ones. lam thoroughly convinced that narrow tires cause three-fourths of our difficulties. The following facts speak for themselves: In Waipu, partly owing to broad tires, and partly owing to light loads, seven inches of gr&vel or metal will stand the traffic, and about five miles of the main road is so metalled. This road is kept in fair order simply because the good sense of the people prevents them from cutting their own road to pieces. At the same time, any one individual might destroy the whole of the five miles within a week if he was foolish enough and the people would allow him. All he would require in order to do this would i)e the same narrow tires and heavy loads commonly-met with in .other parts' of the. county. The air 1 line: Mr. Kerr has been looking after this road since the last meeting of the Council. Four men are kept at work on it at present, two for each county. More men still are wanted, but in any case the road will not stand wheel traffic much longer. By cutting other tracks and making use of* the old aii- line, we can, however, keep the road passable for pack horses. Gerwral remarks: In conclusion, I may remark that in drawing specifications this year a further departure has been made towards doing still less work, and doing it well. The experience of the past few years has shown plainly that to try and cover long stretches or road with small sums of money will not answer in a county progressing so rapidly as Wlmngarei. The. same kind of work that would have carried the traffic of a few years ago would now on-suine roads be but to pieces in one week. From one-horse teams drawing halt'-ii-ton, they have got to live-horse teams drawing two tons, and it takes a really good roud to stand the strain, even in summer. Tlie metal and gravel have therefore, as a rule, been soecifled deeper. The water-tables also, and tlie works generally, havo been made on a more expensive scale. True, shorter distances have been covered, and . long strotclies of road have been left, with little or no repairs, but this could not be avoided. On tlie other hand, the work done is more permanent, and very little has been done this year that will not last for a number of years.—l). C. Wilson, County Engineer.