Nelson Ferry Wanted

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 3

Nelson Ferry Wanted

(From Our Own Reporter/

WESTPORT, Sept. 18

The Minister of Railways (Mr McAlpine) will be asked by the Nelson - Marlbor - ough - West Coast League of Local Bodies to consider making Nelson the South Island terminal for the proposed third Cook Strait ferry.

The league decided this at a meeting of its executive at Westport on Friday night on the motion of Mr T. F. Horne (Nelson City Council). The Mayor of Blenheim (Mr S. P. Harling) said Nelson’s coastal shipping business

could be seriously affected if a high-performance roll-on-roll off ferry served it. Mr Horne: Coastal shipping is going to be affected anyway, sooner of later, isn’t it? NO SURVEY The committee decided to take no further action on the suggestion from the annual meeting that a survey be made of the Hamner-Top-house road with a view to making it a permanent highway. Mr P. J. O’Regan (Inangahua county) said it was the height of folly to expect money to be spent on the project when other work was badly needed in the area. Work was required in the Lewis Pass route to give it top grading, he said It had to be remembered that the Tophouse road was often under snow. The Mayor of Nelson (Mr D. N. Strawbridge) said it

would be unreasonable to ask the Government for funds for the proposed survey. Two good routes served the top of the South Island and Christchurch and the east coast highway was a particularly good one. Another link was hardly justified, he said. GENERATOR SITE The league decided to support Buller’s case of a coalfired power station. New Plymouth has been recommended to the Government as the site. The mayor of Westport (Mr J. Watson) and the member of Parliament for Buller (Mr W. E. Rowling) said that if the coal was shipped to the North Island and a conveyor belt run from the Stockton mine to the waterfront many watersiders and railwaymen would lose employment.