FORTY THOUSAND A YEAR

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12116, 18 April 1925, Page 10

FORTY THOUSAND A YEAR

BITUMEN ROADS, NO INCREASED RATES. MAYOR ON DOAN POLL. That the City Council has been spending £40,000 a year on road maintenance of late and has practically nothing to show for it was an argument advanced in favour of the £200,000 loan for street works by the Mayor, when speaking at the opening of Mr Forsyth’s Mayoral meeting at the Town Hall. Speaking dispassionately as a ratepayer, for his term of office as Mayor would shortly expire, the Mayor said he was not keen to pay increased rates if he could avoid it. He had not willingly seen the rates mount up as they had mounted recently. He had no axe to grind, and lie- said that the macadam roads would not stand up to the traffic. All cities were agreed on that. They were spending £40,000 a year in road maintenance alone, and the sum had been as high sjs £BO,OOO a year, although that included some capital expenditure. What had they to show for it? . Practically nothing. It had been said that the twenty miles proposed was only a drop in the bucket. He admitted that, but unless they made a start somewhere they would be in the same position twenty years hence. Unless this loan poll was carried, if they were spending £40,000 now, what would it he in ten years’ time. It had been asked if they could not get something serviceable but cheaper. He referred them to the Hutt road, and that was a good job. That was generally admitted. The council had an expert from the United States to supervise the laying of the bitumen surface, and he instructed the men how to carry on the same work. There was a 5-inch paving with a bitumen _ carpet on top, which the expert considered necessary, but which the critics said was too good. The expert said it was necessary, as the traffic was vqry heavy now. and when the road was a good one it would become heavier still. It would take a seer to say what the traffic would be like in ten years. The Mayor spoke of the proposal to carry the marine drive round from Day’s Bay, Hutt road, Oriental, Lvall and Island Bays and back to the city, and traffic on that road would increase tremendously when the new road surface was put down. He would have been prepared to vote for an even bigger loan than £200.000, but the council thought it would be unwise to exceed that amount. Auckland was asking for three-quarters of a million', and bad already spent a huge sum. He thought the ratepayers would realise that the council was on sound and : solid ground. The revenue under the Hutt Road Act ana regulations would provide a sum sufficient to meet interest and sinking fund without increasing the rates, and for that rea- . son he believed the loan should he an- ! thorised. Had it heen that the loan 1 would have increased the rates he would have reconsidered liis position. A cer- I tain amount of metal would be taken off the principal roads to make room for the bitumen, and that metal would on to third-class roads to improve them, with the result that there would be an improvement all round.