Lyttelton Gas Plant

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28821, 16 February 1959, Page 10

Lyttelton Gas Plant

After a month’s delay, the Department of Industries and Commerce is expected to decide tomorrow whether the contractors will be allowed to import inexpensive but essential equipment for Lyttelton’s new gas plant The equipment, it is said, cannot be made in New Zealand; and, if it is not procured, efforts to improve Lyttelton’s gas supply will be nullified. After enduring the wrath of housewives and others because of the inefficiency of its gas service, the Lyttelton Borough Council is entitled to some sympathy during the wait for import licences. However, it does seem surprising that proper precautions to ensure the prompt delivery of all plant were not taken immediately after the council decided to reequip its obsolete, uneconomic gasworks at a cost approaching £20,000. More than six months have elapsed since the council let the tender for a new carbonising and coke-handling plant on the existing gasworks site in Norwich quay. The council’s difficulties in maintaining the gas supply became even more acute after its insistence on operating indefinitely a small gas undertaking, where staffing problems are likely to recur, although the trend overseas and in New Zealand has long been towards closing down such undertakings and concentrating demand on

incomparably more economic, large gasworks. When the ■ council last year defined its policy—more by implication than by clear public statements—it was criticised for the apparent neglect to explore fully .the possibility of securing a piped supply of gas from Christchurch and also for creating a possible impediment to wharf access by refurbishing the gasworks on the Norwich quay site. Nothing can be achieved by repeating that criticism, except to remark that a larger 'organisation would probably have remedied Lyttelton’s difficulties more speedily, less uncertainly, and perhaps more cheaply. Even with modern equipment, the council will still face the problem of retaining expert staff for an undertaking that is too small. The extent to Which the Lyttelton council can rely for help upon the Gas Council must remain doubtful; and experience has proved that gas production, to be consistently satisfactory, is best done by big undertakings. The Lyttelton council, however, is firmly- committed to its anachronistic plant; and no good purpose would be served by denying it the necessary import licences now. If the Department of Industries and Commerce wanted to show its superior wisdom it should have done something long before this.