COUNTY ROADS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3930, 23 July 1937, Page 5

COUNTY ROADS

SUBSIDIES AWAITED. A £278,000 reading programme decided upon by the Waipa County Council is being held up for lack of a subsidy from the Main Highways Board. Tlie county’s aim is to reconstruct and seal all the main highways in the county, the work to be spread over four years, and it earned the approval of 92 per cent of voters some months ago. A grant of £50,460 this year has been requested from the Main Highways Board, but an indication has been given by the Treasury that only a small sum will be available. The chairman of the County Council, Mr S. C. B. Macky, conferred with the acting Minister of Public Works, the Hon. P C. Webb, last week, and was informed that no definite allocation could be made until the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon M. J. Savage, and the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, had returned. Survey work connected with the county’s programme is meanwhile going ahead. Representatives of the Raglan County Council informed the Minis ter of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W E. .Parry, in Hamilton on Wednesday that a five year reading scheme ol £410,000 for their county was being similarly delayed owing to the ab sence of subsidies, while the Waikato County representatives stated tt»t their tar sealing programme would be delayed for three years for the same reason. It was contended that superlative main highways were being provided at the expense of the backblocks roads. Mr Parry said that the statements made could not be correct, and that the Minister of Public Works was very concerned that the back-blocks roads should receive every attention.