TRANSPORT FOR ROSKILL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 675, 29 May 1929, Page 8

TRANSPORT FOR ROSKILL

MR. MUNNS HITS OUT “CAP-IN-HAND” BEGGING as a ratepayer at *"■ the Mount Roskifl Road Board's meeting last evening, Mr. C. G. Munns,, M.P. for Roskill, severely criticised the treatment meted out to the suburban districts by the Transport Board. A petition signed by 129 residents, who, with their families, represented a total of 355 persons, had asked for a bu& service from the Mount Eden terminus, along Three Kings Road as far as Hayr Road. They received a reply from the tramways manager enumerating several objections to such a service, intimating, however, that if the Road Board would provide a good road in the Three Kings area the request would be considered.

The board’s engineer. Mr. J. Darlington Whitmore, said that instructions to scarify and re-form the road hajd been issued.

The chairman, Mr. E. F. Jones, urged that every endeavour should be made to give these unfortunate people a service, and suggested that a subcommittee be delegated to wait on the Transport Board with that object. It was a main road, he said, in the heart of the district, and it wa's hoped to lay it down in concrete when the necessary loan was carried.

At this stage Mr. Munns asked permission to speak to the question. lie said that it -was degrading to think that an important local body should have so far to lower itself as to go cap in hand to the Transport Board and ask for what it had a perfect right to receive. The Transport Board, he said, had been instituted by Parliament to give the people of the outlying districts efficient and regular transport, and everybody expected that .when the board was formed that they would get better services. “But.” continued Mr. Munns, “the board will not give these necessary services and. worse, they will not let anyone else do it. They, are supposed to be there for the good of the public, but they are starving and strangling the district.” The chairman’s suggestion - was adopted and a. sub-committee appointed to wait on the Transport Board. .