$250,000 sawmill

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33251, 14 June 1973, Page 15

$250,000 sawmill

A new sawmill costing more than $250,000 will be built in Johns Road, Harewood, for Selwyn Casewoods (McVicar), Ltd, provided approval is given by the Waimairi County Council for a specified departure under the Town and Country Planning Act. Objections to the scheme close on June 29. A hearing will be held soon after that. The mill would be the largest complex of its kind working in Canterbury, said Mr M. C. Taylor, manager of Southern Cross Engineering, Ltd, the firm which is building the mill. It was designed to concentrate the activities of four other sawmills by Selwyn Casewoods, said Mr Taj'lor. Preliminary plans had been approved, and construction plans were under way. Machinery worth more than $200,000 was now being made. It was planned that the mill would be commissioned early next year with a production capacity of 50,000 board feet a shift, said Mr Taylor. This would give the mill the capacity to produce one-quarter of Canterbury’s annual output of timber. The mill was similar in design to one built by Southern Cross Engineering for McAlpines (Rangiora), Ltd, at Southbrook, and opened two years ago. Southern Cross Engineering was also engaged in doubling the size of a sawmill it built in Indonesia two years ago, and was improving another in Fiji, said Mr Taylor.