HEAVY TRAFFIC FEES.

Waikato Times, Volume 101, Issue 16947, 9 November 1926, Page 8

HEAVY TRAFFIC FEES.

WAS MISTAKE MADE? WAIPA COUNCIL THINKS SO. Comment on the recent allocation of heavy traffic fees by Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., at Hamilton, was made at a meeting of the Waipa County Council yesterday. A letter was read from the Hamilton Borough Council, in which it was advised that the magistrate had made an order for the apportionment of Ihc motor-lorry license fees, less the 5 per cent . deduction allowed collecting bodies, as under: To boroughs 55 per cent, to counties 75 per cent, plus a proportion in each case of the balance of the fees allocated on a basis of actual money expended during- the year on the upkeep of roads out of rales. Government subsidies, Highway Board payments, special loans for road reconstruction (but not for the construction of now roads), and interest and sinking funds upon such loans. Headded that the Cambridge and Tamahcre road boards are each to receive £2O per annum from each of the Waipa •and Waikato counties and the Hamilton Borough. The clerk to the Waipa Council put in a letter in which he expressed the opinion that the magistrate had made a mistake in ordering Waipa to pay the Tamahere Road Board £2O per annum. The matter was referred to the Council's legal representative who acted in the matter. "ANOMALOUS AND UNFAIR." PETITION FROM TAMAHERE. A petition signed by a number of light lorry motor users in the Tamahere Road Board district, protesting against the "anomalous and unfair operation of the Motor Vehicles Act," was received by the Waikato County Council this morning. None of the petitioners was a cartage contractor, but all stated they were farmers, using light trucks for the carting of milk to the factory and occasionally manure to their farms. • It was with a view to securing amending legislation, that the petitioners made this request to the council. Mr Lye: I don't think the Act is a fair one. Farmers should be exempt from this rate. On the motion of the chairman, Mr W. Newell, it was decided to make the suggestion to the Main Highways Board, who had been responsible for the framing of the Act, that bona-flde farmers should be exempted from paying the heavy license fee. "'' BACK AREAS CHARGED. PROTEST BY RATEPAYERS. At the meeting of the Waikato County Council this morning a letter was received from the secretary of the Waiterimu and Mataharu Ratepayers' Association that the ratepayers had considered the subject of maintaining the Great South Road, and had been directed to inform the Council that a motion had been passed strongly protesting against the back areas being charged with the maintenance of this road, and supporting the Waikalo Council's action in opposing the lovies of the Main Highways Board. The Association asked that a commission should be set up to go inlo the whole matter.

It was decided to put the matter before the Main Highways Board at a meeting to be held in Hamilton on November 20.