WESTPORT HARBOUR

Grey River Argus, 16 March 1945, Page 5

WESTPORT HARBOUR

MR FURKERT’S REPORT [Our Own Correspondent] WESTPORT, March 15. At a meeting the Borough Council received a copy of the report which Mr F. W. Furkert made on the harbour. It was decided to ask other local bodies to meet and discuss the matted. A motion that a special meeting of the Council be held to discuss the report was moved by cr C Howard, who said councillors should peruse the report and make themselves coversant with it. They should be given a chance, he said, to offer suggestions which might prove beneficial. ~ Cr J. Kilkenny, however, considered the Council could do nothing regarding the report, as it concerned bodies other than the Council. As for the Council to deal with the report in committee, as was suggested by Cr Howard, Cr Kilkenny said there was already too much business dealt with in committee. He suggested 'that, if the Council were to deal with the report it should either do so in open council, or as an alternative, meet the County Council, Borough Council and Progress League in open meeting to discuss the report. He moved a motion to this effect. Cr C. Thomas said the councillors were only laymen. They were not in the position to judge what some of the best engineering brains in the world had to say about the harbour, and the suggested harbour improvements. He thought that* a special committee, comprising the Mayor, Deputy-Mayor and Town Clerk should peruse the report, and deal with any adjustments which they considered necessary or advisable.

The Mayor (Mr J. M. Robertson) considered that the main points of Mr Furkert’s report, and in that of the Special Commission recently appointed to report on the harbour called for a vast dredging policy. The main thing the Council could do in connection with the report, was to urge that this dredging policy be speeded up. Cr S. Jenkins claimed the Government was at fault. The country wanted coal, miners were producing it, and watersiders loaffing it when shipping was available. The Government and the ' shipping companies were to blame for any shortage and for the state of the harbour. Cr Howard withdrew his motion in favour of Cr Kilkenny’s, which was seconded by Cr J. Fairbairn and carried.