WAREHOUSES IN HILLSIDE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29366, 19 November 1960, Page 11

WAREHOUSES IN HILLSIDE

Possibility At Lyttelton

Warehouses carved out of the hillside of Lyttelton harbour might be adopted one? day because of the limited space on the flat land, said Mr J. A. Cashin. engineer-in-chief to the Lyttelton Harbour Board, yesterday. On his overseas visit, Mr Cash in spent a week in Oslo, Norway, mainly in consultations with Dr. L. J. Bjerum, director of the Geophysical Institute, on the £3.5m eastern harbour extension at Lyttelton. He spent a full day inspecting the port of Oslo with its engineer.

At Oslo, warehouses had been provided by cutting into the rock, said Mr Cashin. Oslo’s harbour was very much like Lyttelton’s in that the hills rose straight up from the sea and flat land was difficult to make. For the accommodation of warehouses at Oslo, excavations totalling 300,000 square feet had been into the rock. Mr Cashin has returned with full notebooks and information on the ports he has visited. Among them when Vancourver —“with its wonderful coastal trade by large container vehicles’’ London. Liverpool. Glasgow. Oslo. Zeebiugge, Bombay, and Singapore. “Of course, engineers, like those in every other profession or trade, talk ‘shop’ when they meet their fellows overseas.” said Mr Cashin. Engineers in all the ports were interested in the new harbour developments at Lyttelton and Bluff. “I must be the only visitor to Oslo who has not seen Vigeland park, famous for its statuary.” said Mr Cashin. “I was too busy with Dr. Bjerum and his assistants.” The effects of the seismic wave on the reclamation at Lyttelton last May had been discussed. Tt was found that although the wall had cracked it had stood up remarkably well to the unprecedented to low water level. The effects on the stability of Gladstone pier when the reclamation was built against it had also been discussed but no new line of thought on handling the pressure problem had - been obtained. “As a result of the discussions. I am feeling much happier about the effects feared of the delay of the arrival of the dredge Peraki, and also about the effects on the section of the reclamation which will shortly be reached where the softer material, as indicated by harbour borings, isknown to be present,” he said.