PORT AND PROVINCE

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22941, 10 February 1940, Page 8

PORT AND PROVINCE

TO THE EDITOB Of TBE PRESS. Sir, —In your excellent sub-leader on “Port and Province’’ in to-day’s issue of “The Press,” you have shown up the constant complacency of not only the members of the present Harbour Board, but the lack of enterprise that has characterised the outlook of its members for many years. Such lack of progressive ideas can be understood when the personnel of seme of the past boards is taken .into consideration. However, we have reached a more progj essive age. and the public of Canterbury, realising the advantage of a really up-to-date port, must be disappointed on finding that the present chairman, a young energetic man. who has lived in Lyttelton all his life, has no further outlook than his predecessors. ~ , , Some few months ago the board considered a scheme for the enlargement of the inner harbour, with a turning basin that would give vessels far greater facilities berthing. No mention was made of this scheme in the chairman’s report. Must we w alt for another decade before any further thought will be given to these necessary improvements? Let us consider a few suggestions for the improvement of the port. 1. The widening of the entrance between the moles. Only as recently as February 7 the Wahine had difficulty in berthing owing to the strong northwest wind. What a tremendous and dangerous task it would be to berth the Dominion Monarch under similar conditions. 2. Demolish all the little dog boxes on the waterfront, which are used as offices by the various companies. Erect in their place a decent building that will supply the neces. sary accommodation. 3. Run the ferry train straight on to the ferry wharf instead of by the antiauated method that has been in vogue for more than 30 years. What other port would stand the New Zealand Railways Department’s method of dealing with the nassenger traffic? 4. Make a boat harbour at Cass Bay, with a suitable slip. This could be accomplished quite cheaply by driving piles, and using pile sheating as a breastwork. No expensive rubble breakwater is required. If the entrance to the inner harbour is widened, the enlarging of the harbour can be postponed until conditions are more suitable. —Yours, etc., WEKA. Lyttelton, February 9, 1940.