NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOUR

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 17, 19 July 1918, Page 11

NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOUR

IMPROVEMENT SCHEME.

(fiX TELEGRAPD.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

NEW PLYMOUTH, 18th July.

. The Harbour Board placed before a, public meeting to-day the proposals apE roved by the Government, and adopted y the board, for the improvement and extension of the harbour, from plans prepared by Vix. Blair Mason, of Dunedin, marine engineer, who has taken up a permanent position with the board.

The scheme is* a comprehensive one, and provides immediately for the construction of a rubble wall from' the island of Moturoa to the end of the present breakwater, which will act as a trap for the travelling sand, and build up an area of about seventy acres. The natural reclamation of land from that island to the mainland will thus provide sites for warehouses, graving dock, railway terminus, etc. The plan also provides for the immediate extension of the breakwater by 800 ft, and the using of the eastern side of the breakwater, which is to be widened considerably for the purpose as berths for ocean-going* Vessels, the widening and lengthening of the present wharf, the reclamation of the foreshore for store sites, etc., the deepening of the present harbour to 40ft at low water; and the improving of the present dredge. These immediate works are estimated to cost £300,000.

The final scheme provides for the erection later of an eastern wall to run Out and enclose an area of 300 acres, which is to be all dredged to 40ft at low water, with provision for seven additional ferroconcrete wharves.

The scheme was discussed exhaustively by the meeting, which very favourably received it, and the proposals will, after going to the ratepayers, be incorporated in a Bill to go before Parliament.

Ocean liners have for some time been. coming to New Plymouth, being berthed in safety, and the present proposals will, if sanctioned, give New Plymouth in a few years a first-class harbour, \vith a berths.ge equal to that of any other port in New Zeala.nd, and provide for the accommodation of intercolonial passenger vessels, t,he_ idea being that when the Stratfoi'd-Main Trunk railway is through., tho shipping companies will avail themselves- of the shortest, safest, and most direct route to Sydney.