Lyttelton Harbour

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25129, 10 March 1947, Page 6

Lyttelton Harbour

The present Lyttelton Harbour Board has wisely made no attempt to keep up the pretence of some former boards that the port adequately serves the large part of the South Island which depends on it. It now has before it, after long study of the problem, a comprehensive development plan to make the port roughly comparable with those of Auckland and Wellington in shiphandling capacity and to make it safe and convenient for the largest vessels trading to New Zealand. Prepared by the board’s engineer, Mr A, J. Charman, the plan brings up to date several earlier plans of the last decade and the main features—the enlargement of the inner harbour and the construction of new breakwaters—have been approved not only by the board’s consulting engineers but by the English harbour engineering experts who visited New Zealand last year. There are many good reasons why such a plan should be pressed forward now. A year ago, when the Minister of Works said it would not be laid down as a condition that the Harbour Board must carry out its programme of major works before the Tunnel Road could be begun, his assurance was welcomed By all who regard the tunnel as one of the primary economic needs of the province. But the advantages that it promises will be soonest reaped, if the two big works are so timed as to minimise delay in opening the wharves to commercial vehicles, or to avoid any delay. Lyttelton Harbour has great natural advantages, but ships have outgrown its installations. Although some very large ships have berthed in Lyttelton easily and in safety many shipmasters refuse to take big ships in because they consider there is not enough room in the inner harbour to manoeuvre in difficult weather. Doubling the diameter of

the present turning circle, as is provided in the plan, should remove the main obstacle to direct oversea services to Lyttelton and to visits from the big tourist ships. As any plan of port modernisation must, the plan provides for the servicing of shipping by both road and rail. The present system of loading and discharging all* cargo direct from and into railway trucks has obvious disadvantages. Some have been attributable to shortage of railway trucks or have been exaggerated by it; but there is a more serious handicap than shortage of trucks to be overcome—the handicap of a rail monopoly—and commercial interests rightly expect a change to a system in competitive charges will rule to be a change for the better. The board has not yet indicated how it proposes to finance the improvements. It was estimated a year ago that the new breakwaters, the removal of the outer 700 ft of the Gladstone Pier (the present eastern breakwater), and the dredging of a new entrance channel would cost £1,450,000. The cost »will be higher now. The board’s task is to apportion it among those who use the port’s facilities without substituting financial handicaps for the physical ones overcome. But Canterbury and the South Island have so much to gain from real improvements at Lyttelton that the problem should be attacked with corresponding courage and faith. As the chairman of the board said a few months ago, “There must be “ no ‘ squealing ’ over the cost