New call for freight study

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32676, 4 August 1971, Page 19

New call for freight study

The Government should have “a serious look" at the question of adjusting freight rates to help South Island manufacturers sending their goods north. This was a motion carried by the Paparua County Council on' Monday evening for submissions as a remit to the conference of the South Island Local Bodies’ Association, in September. Cr A. Y. Shuker, who moved the motion, said that the freight differential was a tremendous handicap to South Island manufacturers. It was “remarkably more cheap” to send goods from Auckland to Christchurch than it was to send goods from Christchurch to Auckland. “Two-thirds of the buying population lives north of Hamilton, but ’ Christchurch has attractive land and facilities for manufacturers, and the more industry there is in Christchurch, the more in Paparua County,” he said. Cr D. P. Graham said that the freight differential was becoming a hardy annual at the association’s conferences. Last year, the association had asked for a thorough investigation. He did not know what reply had been received, but he suspected that it would again be that someone would have to find the $900,000 necessary to achieve uniform freight rates.