TRANSPORT AT NELSON

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28256, 18 April 1957, Page 18

TRANSPORT AT NELSON

“Forging Ahead” In Three Types

(New Zealand Press Association) NELSON, April 17.

Each year costs in the air transport industry were tending downwards and it was rapidly becoming one of the cheapest, as well as one of the most convenient, forms of passenger transport. said the Minister in charge of Civil Aviation (Mr T. P. Shand), speaking at the Nelson airport at a ceremony to mark the completion of a new sealed runway at the aerodrome. The sealed strip is 4000 ft long and 150 ft wide with taxiways to the terminal building and hangars. Nelson had suffered a justifiable sense of grievance with the lack of rail transport, said the Minister. Thirty years ago there were only two forms of transport—sea and rail. Today there were four —rail, road, sea, and air—and each had its sphere and each its future. Each year air transport made inroads into the fields traditionally belonging to the railways and shipping, said the Minister. There were definite limits to the field of air transport and sea transport still had a big part to play in the economy of New Zealand.

“Of the four forms of transport. Nelson is definitely forging ahead in three,” said Mr Shand. “I believe that the Nelson Harbour Board and the people who work in the shipping industry in Nelson have set a standard which the rest of New Zealand could well copy. “My remarks of a few days ago on sea transport were made in the belief that new possibilities are opening up. but if we are to reap the benefit of them, every element that goes to make up this complex industry will have to approach its particular problem with a determination to reduce costs.” he said.