Westport Harbour

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30543, 11 September 1964, Page 10

Westport Harbour

The annoyance felt in Westport at the modification of the harbour improvement plan (with a consequent reduction in the Government’s commitment from £650,000 to £300,000) is understandable. The Harbour Advisory Committee is clearly entitled to a full explanation of the Government’s early reversal of its announced intention, though the committee is in no position to demand adherence to the original scheme. Westport citizens are probably inclined to link the modification of the harbour improvement plan to the current dip in the fortunes of coalmining caused by the tendency in the North Island to prefer oil and natural gas. That trend certainly should be taken into account, because the time may not be far distant when Westport coal is too valuable to bum; the time has certainly arrived when coal is too valuable for its waste to be subsidised. If only as a possible source of electrical energy from a steam station on the Buller field, coal should be conserved for demonstrably economic uses. However, present uncertainty about the exact place coal is to have in the national economy seems to have little to do with the decision to proceed cautiously with spending on the Westport harbour. New Zealand’s experience with bar harbours has been almost uniformly discouraging; and the discouragement has been more expensive at Westport than at most river ports. Apparently all that is contemplated is postponement of that part of the new plan providing for extension of the harbour walls. The delay has at least this merit: it will give time to see whether narrowing the harbour entrance gives the improvement hoped for. A question that must still be answered is whether the progress and prosperity of Westport are so heavily dependent on the harbour; or whether the money the Government might spend on this seemingly unending struggle with nature might not be better devoted to some productive project in the Buller district