WHICH IS BEST?

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2144, 14 April 1928, Page 4

WHICH IS BEST?

BITUMINOUS PREPARATIONS

FOR ROADS.

“ That this Council requests the Main Highways Board to formulate a scheme to establish a testing ground for the many road-making preparations now on the market.” The foregoing resolution was carried unanimously at last meeting of the Lower Hutt Borough Council, following consideration of six applications for the supply of bituminous preparations for testing purposes in roadmaking. The Mayor (Mr W. T. Strand) said that he was glad to /see that councillors had at last decided to take a genuine interest in the top-dressing of the borough roads. He mentioned that thitee years ago, when he was at. a meeting of the Local Highways Board, a suggestion from the Main Highways Board that strips of road should be set aside for experimental purposes was refused. The experiments would have cost the borough nothing. It was hard to know exactly which preparation could be said to be better than another. The agents for each preparation were just like the managers of all business houses —they all claimed that their own lines were the only ones worth buying. In suggesting that certain strips of road should be set aside for the purpose of trying out the various sealing preparations, the Mayor said that it might take months, or it might take years, to find out how long a preparation would last before it .showed signs of wearing out. Cr F. Campbell asked what was going to happlen to the unpaved roads during the months —or years—which would elapse while the experiments were being carried out. In his opinion a thorough test should be mado by the Main Highways Board of the various preparations submitted.