PORT WORK INSPECTED

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28530, 8 March 1958, Page 14

PORT WORK INSPECTED

Marine Minister Impressed

Like his predecessor in office. Mr R. G. Gerard, the new Minister of Marine (Mr W. A. Fox) is impressed with the development of the port of Lyttelton under the £3,500,000 extension scheme, now in its first stage.

The Minister made his first official visit to the port yesterday. His first visit was in a ship during World War I. The enlargement of the port was a big scheme but the future would undoubtedly prove that it was not big enough, Mr Fox remarked when he was entertained at lunch by the Lyttelton Harbour board at the Lyttelton Hotel.

The figures relating to the trade of the port had been given to the Minister. He said they bound to increase as increased production arid population in Canterbury were assured. ‘‘l am very impressed with what you are doing and if I can help you at any time I will do all I possibly can,” he assured board members. Mr Fox was taken for an inner and outer harbour cruise in the pilot launch Wairangi in the morning. He saw the port extension work from the harbour and after lunch inspected the quarry at Sticking Point from which rock is being obtained for the retaining wall, inside which will be built an overseas shipping wharf of more than 3000 feet, and a 30-acre reclamation will be made on which to build storage sheds. Lyttelton Questions

When the Wairangi called at Diamond Harbour, the Minister went ashore ,with Mr N. E. Kirk M.P., the member for Lyttelton, to inspect the community centre, and there he met the Mayor of Lyttelton (Mr F. G. Briggs) and other members of the borough council and had talks with them on questions affecting the borough and the Marine Department.

On the way back to Christchurch, Mr Fox visited the Marine Department’s lighthouse at Godley Head.

Harbour - Board members who made the inspection with the Minister were Messrs W. P. Glue (chairman), L. G. Amos, W. S. Mac Gibbon, F. W. Freeman and A. A. Macfarlane. The secretarymanager (Mr A. L. Burk) and the engineer-in-chief (Mr J. A. Cashin) also attended. With the Minister was his private secretary (Mr D. M. Mclntyre). A visitor was the general manager of the Wellington Harbour Board, Mr Harold Meachem.