NEW PLYMOUTH STREETS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 June 1927, Page 8

NEW PLYMOUTH STREETS.

The chairman of the works committee of the New Plymouth Borough Council (Cr. T. McPhillips) may be congratulated upon the comprehensive report submitted on Monday last in regard to the streets and roads under the council’s jurisdiction. It reveals a thorough grip of the position and a determination to enable ratepayers also to have a full understanding of existing conditions. The report itself gives ample proof of the necessity for plain speaking, and Cr. McPhillips’ conclusion that the matter must be dealt with on bold and comprehensive lines is likely to commend itself to the majority of ratepayers. Having no money wherewith to prosecute works such as re-grading, tar-sealing, kerbing and channelling certain streets, the council is obliged to continue a wasteful system of maintenance which for all its cost leaves the streets a little worse in condition at the end of each year :::.d therefore more expensive to maintain in the next. Avenue Road is a case in point. Years of neglect hav e resulted in a huge depression being formed on one side of the road, and it is now estimated that it will cost from £BOOO To £12,000 to put the road into a condition a very much smaller sum, spent years ago, would have provided. In Carrington Road, as Cr. Griffiths pointed out, th« council has just spent a lot of money in street widening, etc. Funds not being available to complete the work there are already warnings that much of the material used in filling and grading is likely to be washed into a gully by the roadside, with an entire waste of what it has cost. As Cr. Payne showed, these instances can be multiplied

all over the town, where, for want of funds for proper maintenance this year, a twenty per cent, deterioration is sure to follow. There are two ways in which additional funds for street improvements may be provided. One is by increasing the rates; the other is by way of a loan. All things considered the latter is the preferable course to adopt. As Cr. McPhillips points out, the borough is paying for merely keeping water-tables clear and grass off the streets some £3OOO to £4OOO per annum. Much of this expenditure could b« avoided were the necessary capi tai expenditure possible, and the sum named would be sufficient to pay interest upon a loan of £40,000 at 7 per cent, interest and sinking fund. The matter is one of urgency, for each year’s neglect sees the volume of necessary work increase so that what can now be done for £40,000 may require double that amount within a comparatively few years’ time. It is to be hoped that the council will bring down a comprehensive scheme without delay and seek the ratepayers’ sanction for a loan wherewith to carry it out. If it can be shown that the loan will mean less increase in the rates than the present piecemeal methods are bound to entail before long, there seems little reason to fear that the approval of the ratepayers will be withheld.