THE ROAD REPORT

Southland Times, Issue 19831, 30 March 1926, Page 6

THE ROAD REPORT

The report of the Special Committee set up to investigate the road scheme will take nobody by surprise. After having heard the expert from Wellington, Mr A. J. Paterson, the committee, taking its inquiries very little, if any, further, has reached a point

where it invites the Council to take up the purchase of an additional mixer as recommended to it before the committee began its operations. Without a knowledge of the details in Mr Paterson’s report, it is impossible to show to what extent the committee has been guided by him, but it would appear that according to Mr Paterson the whole trouble has been with the mixer, which has been unequal to the task asked of it. For the use of this plant, of course, the present Council cannot be blamed, but it is an interesting fact that without any additional plant there has been a very marked improvement recently in the work done by the corporation’s gangs, which would suggest that it was the use of it rather than the plant itself which was at fault in the early stages. Mr Paterson has carried out a . lot of bitumen work in Wellington, and it is well-known, of course, that his operations have been subjected to severe criticism, but this fact will not lessen the weight of his report to the committee on the Invercargill road work and the committee is right in attaching a great deal of importance to his opinions. There has been no delay in the road operations as the result of this inquiry and indeed it may be safely said that there is a marked improvement in the work since the inquiry was undertaken; and one point at least that will come out of the discussion is, that in work of this kind it is extremely unwise for an engineer to attempt to improvise with inadequate plant in order to save a few pounds in a job involving large expenditure. The Council may take this fact to heart when they are considering, not merely the North Road, but the other streets of the Borough the state of which is sufficient to invite the condemnation, not merely of the Works Committee, but of the entire Council. It has been suggested that the North Road has absorbed all the material available for road work and has left insufficient for maintenance. If this is so it suggests faulty organisation, and, as . the winter is rapidly approaching, it looks as if one of the fruits of a limited piece of bitumen concrete work in the North Road is to be miles of streets in such a condition that reconstruction will be absolutely necessary. Perhaps if the Works Committee were able to take a little more active interest in the operations of the staff under its direction, it would be in a better position to understand exactly what has been done and how far short are the provisions it makes for maintenance.