INGLEWOOD SOUTH.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 February 1916, Page 7

INGLEWOOD SOUTH.

ROADS AND BRIDGES. (From Our Own Correspondent). The proper roading of new lands must perforce, be a matter of slow development, more especially under such circumstances as prevail iu Taranaki, with its almost innumerable streams and a rainfall that is nearly a by-word. Hitherto, and even now with many of tliem, one of the heaviest charges on the revenues of our local bodies has been the cost of maintenance of the ■wooden bridges with which the larger streams were spanned, as well as the repairing of tile old wooden culverts that carried the smaller streams beenath the road?. Of late years, however, the local bodies have recognised that sucli works as these can now be done in a permanent form and concrete (reinforced or otherwise) has been replacing the decayed timber of former days. When the roads were in the making timber was handy to be used, and in many cases It is no doubt a good thing that more permanent structures were not made for in the then stage of the development of the country it must have been well-nigh impossible to judge correctly when the culvert or bridge could be built to the best advantage. In the matter of replacing timber with concrete it is fair to say that the Taranaki County Council set a very good example, and now that to a very large extent the bridge question in the county is settled the Council is able to turn its attention more to the permanent improvement of roads, and the ratepayers i of the county may congratulate themselves that they have representing them on the Council men who do not believe in patchings and makeshifts, but who would rather wait till a piece of roadwork can be undertaken and carried to a definite and. successful finish than be satisfied with a makeshift job that is pionounced "near eneugh." As an example of the present Council's work, it ii fair to point to two pieces of permanent improvement now being carried out by Mr. R. W*. Fisher (the ceunty engineer) on the Mountain road, smith of Inglewood. The first to be mentiened, as nearer the centre of the county, is a piece «f re-grading and widening f«r a distance of about twelve chains. Here is a shapeless road, part of it of the well-known "hog's back" variety, and part a nasty pinch of a hill, a read, too, that meanders about, within the hud-aft" roadway certainly, but in a way that makes one think it must originally have been laid off by a dawdling lad on his reluctant way to school. Well, this shapeless road is in process of reformation; it is to have a grade for nine chains to the top of the rise of 1 in 56, one chain length of level on the 'summit, then for two chains a fall of 1 in 220 to meet the crossing of the Dudley road. This will be effected by lowering the present hill at least Aft I and making a filling sft 9in high. The roadway will be opened to .'iOft wide and so straightened that it will be in the middle of the road as laid out on the map of the district. The next job is some three or four mile 3 further south, where, until now, have stood two sharp though small hills, with a fiat between, which was lower than- the low road to which the hills descended on the outer or north and south sides. This piece of road is some 17 or 18 chains long, and the present, or rather the recent, metalled road hugged the west boundary most of the way. The alteration here will be even more complete than at the Dudley road-to-Inglewood portion of the road; the two hilte will become things of the past, the low flat will be raised, and in place of a dangerous and (to maintain) an expensive piece of road, the public will have 17 chains of straight level road 30ft wide to travel over in safety and comfort, and the Council will have only a level road instead of four quicklywearing hills to maintain. Both these pieces ot work are being pushed on as quickly as possible, and it is much to be hoped that they will be completed before the wet weather of the fall of the year interferes. They will, without doubt, reflect credit on those responsible for carrying them through.