NEW FREEZING WORKS TO COST £1,250,000

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 August 1946, Page 4

NEW FREEZING WORKS TO COST £1,250,000

(P.A.) PALMERSTON N., Aug. 28. The biggest single commercial building programme ever undertaken by private enterprise in the Manawatu district, involving an estimated cost of £1,250,000, has been started at the Longburn freezing works, about four miles from Palmerston North. The new works, when completed, will be the most modern of their kind in the Southern Hemisphere. . The owner of the works is the Cooperative,. Wholesale Society, Ltd., with head office in Manchester, England. The contract for the work has been, let to C.M.B. Construction Company, Ltd. It is thought the project will take from four to five years to complete. To begin with only minimum requirements will be undertaken in order that the existing works may be kept for the approaching killing season, but as other facilities are provided the work will be speeded up. When the job is in full swing it is anticipated that 250 men will be engaged there. The new structure will be erected on a site near the present building. Mr J. McMillan, a member of the contracting firm, said there had been a suggestion that carpenters might .consider the job non-essential in view of the urgent demand for houses, but the Minister of Works (Mr Semple) had given an assurance that the project was considered by the Government to be of major priority because of the need to expedite the export of foodstuffs to Great Britain.

The Longburn freezing works were the first to be established in Manawatu. Erected on the present site in 1895, the works were capable of dealing with 1500 sheep and 60 cattle a day. To-day they handle 4000 sheep and 100 cattle a day. The company went into liquidation, but the works did not close down entirely, being acquired by the National .Mortgage and Agency Company, which controlled them until 1940, when they were purchased by the Co-operative Wholesale Society, Ltd.