Timaru won’t, lose to Lyttelton — Mr Petrie

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 7

Timaru won’t, lose to Lyttelton — Mr Petrie

Fears that Timaru could lose its bulk meat export trade to Lyttelton have been dismissed by the chairman of the Timaru Harbour Board, Mr B. J. Petrie. There had, for some time, been much publicity about possible conflicts between the ambitions of the supporters of the Lyttelton Harbour Board and the activities of the Timaru Board,' said Mr Petrie. -

Referring to concern expressed by Mr J. H. Somerville as to the possibility of mechanical meat loaders being built at Lyttelton, Mr Petrie said: “We have no opposition, we have a few would-be competitors.'’ The publicity was just a recurrence of what had occurred over the years, said Mr Petrie. The provision of bulk facilities would need the approval of the New Zealand ports authority, which had a declared policy against the development of capital facilities when another port, which already had the equipment and experience, was satisfactorily doing its job. “It is for this reason that this board has. over the years, spent a lot of money on maintaining its mechanical meat-handling equipment and ensuring that it continues to function with as much efficiency as it did when it was first opened," said Mr Petrie.

Many people said the meat loaders had a limited useful life, but the supporters of the cellular container system had not had as much satisfaction in the handling of

frozen meat as they had hoped. The use of meat loaders and container ships had increased and with the present mechanical state of the board's equipment and expertise the' board had the capacity to deal with much more meat. Ten years ago, it dealt with 120,000 tons a year.

“We have lost 80,000 ton's of that to containerisation," said Mr Petrie.

“We have the capacity to get that back if conventional shipping is used to take frozen meat, to new markets," he said.

“Before the media publicity we had heard some rumours that supporters of the Port of Lyttelton were ambitious in this direction. We must remember that Lyttelton has a much broader population and political base than we have. Any dreams they may have we have to look at with a certain amount of concern,” Mr Petrie said.

The Board’s officers had ascertained that no complaints had been made about the efficiency of the handling of frozen meat and bulk grain through Timaru, nor was there any. suggestion that the board was unable to cope with the present supply. “It is apparent that the cellular container system is not as economical as was expected, nor able to cope with the diversity of markets," he said. The board must realise that the shipping business was in a state of flux. There was no room for complacency. and the board's officers would continue to monitor the market and take such steps as were necessary to defend the position of Timaru as the central South Island export port. If a palliative was necessary, Mr Petrie was quick to offer a prescription.

“We have the facilities, we have the expertise. I do not think that this is a new move. It is a repetition of

previous moves. We look for our own business. If we fail and other ports take the trade away from us that is our fault. We lost business through political reasons to containerisation,” he said.