OUTLET FOR WHITFORD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19474, 2 November 1926, Page 6

OUTLET FOR WHITFORD.

Sir,—ln reply to Mr. Booker's letter, I say the sarnie" provision has beeu made this year fo:r the roads in the Turanga riding as was made last year, and it is intended to spend about £4OO on improvements to a side road and! metalling the unmetailed portion of the Brookby Road. If Mr. Booker is justified in asking for the rates to be raised for the purpose of improving his road, then all the ratepayers living on side roads, from one end of the riding to the other, would bo entitled to have the rates raised high enough to provide them all with roads as good as what Mr. Booker has to his placo. I quite agree with Mr. Booker that side roads should be attended to as well as the main road. In his list he does not mention Mr. H. Broomfield's road. The lower end of this road is clay and has had very little done to it at any time. Certainly some improvements should bo made to this road. Mr. Booker states that the nfew outlet for Whit ford will be too costly and suggests that instead cf it the Manngaroa Gorge Road should be improved. As shown in the estimates of Mr. Granger's metalling scheme, widening, grading and metalling tho old road would be about as costly per mile as forming, grading and metalling Broomfield's Road, which "is the road that will be utilised for the new outlet. In any case a concrete bridge in tho near future will have to be constructed across the Maungaroa Creek at some point or other. If tho Maungaroa Gorge Road is adopted as our main road the ratepayers would still have to find tho money for Broomfield's Road. If Broomfield's Road is adopted as our main road, as it is proposed so to do, there would be no necessity of doing anything to the .Maungaroa Gorge Road, excepting maintenance, which would be very light. It is therefore obvious that if the new outlet for Whitford is made, the expense to the ratepayers will bo the cost of one road, from Whitford to Broomfield's and through Mr. Beckett's, and the district would have tho best possiblo outlet. Whereas Mr. Booker's suggestion, if carried out, would impose on the district the Maungaroa Gorge as an outlet, now placarded dangerous, and it will always be so, and his suggestion instead of being economical will cost the ratepayers more than the proposed new outlet for Whitford, as it means reconstructing and metalling two roads instead of ona. Lkwis Gilbektson. Whitford.