A ROAD TO GLENORCHY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23058, 8 December 1936, Page 8

A ROAD TO GLENORCHY

There will be a great deal of sympathy with the patient residents of Glenorchy who are requesting from the Government a road that will give access from Queenstown to their district at the head of Lake Wakatipu. The settlers' case is that they have no communication with the world outside except by steamer from Queenstown twice a week and by a bridle track formed long before the days of motor travel. There are mineral resources in the district awaiting more extensive development, and there are 300 people who feel, reasonably enough, that the time has come when their isolation should be ended. The dis-

advantages of which they complain are real enough, not thie least of them being the difficulty of securing medical aid when it is urgently needed. The work of forming a road was begun many years ago, but was abandoned on the score of expense. The request for its resumption is one to .which the Government might well; give sympathetic attention, in view of the facts that were laid before delegates to the meeting of the Island Motor Union who visited Glenorchy last week. The Government might consider subsidising the cost of a medical service, if it; cannot be induced to do more in the direction of providing the amenity sought. If the construction of a road were shown to be justified, the Government would at least have the occasion for the employment of more of the country's idle labour on a public work. Thie cost of the proposed road will 'have to be weighed against the advantages it would offer. On the face of it the residents of Glenorchy seem certainly to have established a sound case for a departmental survey which would establish the cost of the undertaking. WJien that preliminary step has been taken, the request for the construction of a road could be fully examined on its merits. i