HUTT HARBOUR

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 4, 29 September 1944, Page 4

HUTT HARBOUR

Estimated Cost £1,000,000

Though at this stage no one could say what the proposed Hutt harbour would cost to« build and equip, it could fairly be assumed that it would be about £1,060,000. The interest and sinking fund charges on that would be about £50,000 per annum. Assuming that there was a margin of 1/- a ton available from revenue over working expenses to meet capital charges, 1,000,000 tons of cargo a year would have to be handled to meet this. The population of the Hutt Valley and Eastbourne was about 13 per cent, of the total for the Wellington district, but it was unlikely that 13 per cent, of the cargo now dealt with at the Wellington wharves would go over the Hutt wharves if they were built. These statements were made by Mr. E. P. Norman, Wellington town clerk, when giving evidence before the Hutt Harbour Commission yesterday. Estimating that 9 per cent, of the cargo handled in Wellington would go over the Hutt wharves, he said that on the basis of the total of 2,362,420 tons for 1939, the Hutt harbour probably would not have more than 213,000 tons of cargo per annum, and a large financial deficiency seemed certain. , ~ . „ There were 40 harbour boards in Rew Zealand, according to the Local Authorities Handbook, 1940-41, and 17 of them had to levy rates on land to pay their way, said Mr. Norman. No matter how any financial deficiency in the working of the Hutt harbour might be met in the first instance, it would represent a burden on the community and would probably be met in part by citizens of Wellington. , The existing main roads and railways from Wellington wharves to the Hutt Valley, with an overbridge at Petone and a new bridge at Gear Island, were sufficient, he said, to carry all the traffic required as far ahead as could be seen. Harbour construction works would 'damage the strata holding back artesian water in the Hutt Valley, endanger the whole supply (on part of which Wellington city relied in periods of water shortage). and interfere with the collecting and pumping works. The construction and use of a harbour for overseas shipping near the Hutt River would result in higher costs of handling goods so diverted.