DEVIATION NEAR LEPPERTON

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1931, Page 9

DEVIATION NEAR LEPPERTON

■' ‘ REPLY GIVEN TO'CRITICISM. ■"

At yesterday’s meeting of the No. 7 (Taranaki) Highways Council Mr. J. S. Connett, chairman , of the Taranaki County Council, referred -to a certain amount of adverse criticism upon the action of his county in making the new deviation of 24 chains on the Lepperton Road south- of the Lepperton railway station. It.might appear at first thought, that this-deviation was unnecessary, he said, but it had to be remembered that the deviation had always .been there as a surveyed road. The council had. taken into consideration the. cost of fencing, renewing and'.bituminising the old road, while the cost of ,the new deviation was only that of re-forming. The matter was referred to the Main Highways Board• and the board- approved of the deviation and agreed to find the' money for the earth, work. , , It - was satisfactory to know that the tender was less than, 'the amount'pfo*. vided and, the .metal, from, the old. road was used.upon the deviation. The completion of the new. work -would not cost more than the amount involved in reconditioning and bitumepising . . .the old road. Therefore it' could be seen that the work was justified and that the £l2OO to £l5OO spent was not, as had been alleged, 'an’ extravagant expenditure. The old road had since beeri sold to the owner of the land in the vicinity. To Mr. J. B. Murdoch, Hawera County, he said the formation work was done by what might be called free money.