Napier Harbour Scheme

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 18 September 1934, Page 4

Napier Harbour Scheme

Two Modern Concrete Wharves to be Built WORK TO COST £406,000 (Cjr veiejrrapa—ires* Association.; NAPIER, Sept. 18. Substantial progress was made by the Napier Harbour Board yesterday towards an extension of proposals for the development of the port, recently approved by the ratepayers in a poll on the £335,000 loan proposal. Details of the scheme were fully considered by the board, and designs for two ferro-conerete wharves to be erected were approved. It was also decided to speed the work up by reducing the period of construction from four and a-half years to three. To this end the hoard intends to hire a dredge for a period of six months for the purpose of supplementing the operations of its own dredge.

The two wharves will he substantial and moderately designed. One will be SOO feet by 181 feet, equipped with cargo, sheds and electric cranes, and the other will be 750 feet by 81 feet, equipped with cranes. Both wharves will carry adequate railway lines and will be suitable for use by motor traffic.

The two new wharves will have a low-water depth of 35 feet at the berths, making, with the existing facilities, six berths for the accommodation of overseas vessels. Tenders for another section of the work, the extension of the protecting breakwater by 400 feet, are to be called immediately, and tenders for the construction of the two wharves will he called as soon as the dredging of the sides and approaches is sufficiently far advanced.

The board also approved an arrangement entered into with the Unemployment Board for the latter to pay a subsidy of 12 per cent, of the total capital cost of the works (£406,000) on the understanding that 80 per cent, of the labour required shall be drawn from the unemployment registers of Hawke’s Bay, the men to be engaged at full award rates of pay. With a view to discouraging the influx of men from other parts, the board has decided on the adoption of a residential qualification, agreeing that no work be granted to men unless resident in the board’s rating district on July 20 last.