£100,000 Timber Plant Planned For Coast

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30531, 28 August 1964, Page 1

£100,000 Timber Plant Planned For Coast

(From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, August 27. The Christchurch firm of H. W. Smith, Ltd., timber and joinery manufacturers, has been granted long-term cutting rights for a period of 20 years in an extensive area of State rimu and beech bush in the Inangahua district by the Government.

The firm will erect a plant worth £lOO,OOO and it is expected that upwards of 60 workers will be employed.

Confirmation of the transaction was given in Greymouth today by Mr C. L. Smith, governing director of the company, which is already established in . the Westland timber business,

operating the Punakaiki Sawmilling Company, and the Okuku mills at Dillmanstown.

These supply his Christchurch joinery factory and retail sections, but Mr Smith said that his new enterprise would be completely independent of those already existing.

“in the near future 1 intend to form a new company with a capital of £lOO,OOO for the Reef ton operations. The plan there is to build a new sawmill and a complete processing plant,” he said. Door Factory The sawmill will incorporate modern band-sawing techniques for better utilisation of timber, and the processing will include kiln drying, treatment of timbers and a planing mill. Also in the Reefton project for the future is the erection of a door factory. The plant will draw its

supplies from an initial sale area of 716 acres in State Forest 17, 15 miles on the western side of Inangahua. This is part of a huge bushland area which has been surveyed in detail over 3000 acres, but which is believed to contain timber over a total of 15,000 acres. The company’s products will be distributed throughout New Zealand, but, according to Mr Smith, full opportunity will also be given to builders, cabinet-makers, and joinery manufacturers in Canterbury to purchase partly-processed timber. The company also hopes to export beech to Australia in a semi-manufactured form. 60 Employees Mr Smith said the industry would employ at least 60 and possibly many more. This would be determined by the availability of labour, lie hopes to train operators from the Reefton area in the machinery branch of thej trade and to have the sawmill operating in six months, i Fifth Industry The erection of a Reefton plant by H. W. Smith will give Westland its fifth big timber industry. It will also complete a pattern covering the northern part of the province to the far south. At Okuru, in the Haast area, the Auckland firm of Carter Merchants (Maramarua), Ltd., has erected a giant new mill.

Three other enterprises are in the process of development around the Greymouth district Fletcher Industries, Ltd, has completed the building construction for its £500,000 venture at Gladstone: Henderson and Pollard, Auckland, is working on the expansion of the suburban business of Karoro Timber and Hardware Company, Ltd., which it ha: taken over: and a few miles north of the town, site preparations are under way at Stillwater for the processing plant of P-S Timbers, Ltd. I