TAKAPUNA-SILVERDALE ROAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20473, 27 January 1930, Page 14

TAKAPUNA-SILVERDALE ROAD.

Sir, —The Takapuna-Silverdale Road is the most popular road to the North when fit for traffic. Therefore, Mr. Harris', M.P. statement of the reasons why the two-mile clay gap is not considered by the Main Highways authorities a fit subject for unemployment relief cannot be passed as a trifle. He states it is because the ratepayers of the county rejected a loan tq metal it. Naturally, if they had already metalled it, the matter would be ended. I would like Mr. Harris to investigate the conditions of that loan proposal and this road's past history (not only from official quarters). He will find that it was proposed:—(l) To raise an excessive amount; (2) to accept a miserably small subsidy; (3) to place the rest of the heavy cost unfairly on a small handful of eastern settlers, who have already been fully rated to make the expensive western main highway through Birkenhead—all (his in spite of this Takapuna road being a secondary highway. No man in his senses could have voted for that iniquitous loan proposal. The settlers alongside had previously offered to do the labour of metalling the gap under a cheaper and more equitable scheme, but this public-spirited offer was ignored. Arthur Sainsbury.