Bay Power Board's New Kaitaia Headquarters

Northern Advocate, 8 March 1947, Page 4

Bay Power Board's New Kaitaia Headquarters

(Special) ' KAITAIA, This Day. PROVIDING for future maintenance and extension of services as well as the balance of outstanding reticulation in the Far North, the Bay of Islands Electric Power Board is installing extensive facilities at Kaitaia.

Already the site of the board’s pole store, concrete pole-making plant and vehicle garage, a section of If acres in Commerce Street will also, by the end of this year, accommodate a roomy depot and modern office facilities.

The complete installation will provide for the electric power needs of the whole of Mangonui county from the Mangamuka ranges to the North Cape, together with portions of Whangaroa and Hokianga counties,, the board chairman (Mr L. Peace) said. These facilities will replace cramped accommodation used since commencement of the board's activities in Kaitaia and district over six years ago. Building contractors have already commenced construction of the new ferro-conerete depot which will have a floor space of 100 ft by 50ft providing for bulk store, workshop, faultmen’s room, electric range and water heater storage, meter test room and a wellequipped staff room. A feature of the depot will be the transformer servicing facilities including a work room for drying, filling and testing transformers and a drying oven. The improved service possible, it is anticipated, will greatly assist in obviating transformer breakdowns.

Also installed in the depot will be an overhead travelling hoist to handle weights of up to one ton, and a fixed hoist with a five-ton capacity. MODERN OFFICES Facing Commerce Street between the Kaitaia dairy factory offices and the Star garage will be the new office block which has been designed with a strikingly modernistic frontage. This building will contain the public office and showroom, resident engineer’s office and inspectors’ room.

Also on the same site are five single men’s huts, and one cottage built from a converted defence building. At the rear, facing Matthews Avenue, is being built a new four-roomed house for the line foreman. These two homes bring the total houses already provided by the board in Kaitaia to five, and there is room for more if required. Other facilities on the property include blacksmithing and woodwork shops. At least eight vehicles will be housed in the open-type shelter which has already been built. CONCRETE POLE-MAKING In active operation for some months has been the board’s concrete polemaking plant, found necessary owing to the impossibility of procuring Australian hardwood pole supplies. These poles are made in lengths of 26, 30, and 32 feet, some being of L section and others T section according to the purpose for which required. Their average weight is one ton, and although more difficult to handle than wooden poles, they have been found to give full satisfaction. They are of concrete mixed in special proportions reinforced with arc-welded steel rods and are formed in wooden and steel moulds. Board staff members have built their own travelling crane and tramway to handle the completed poles, manufacture of which is a full-time job for four men, who turn out about 50 a month.

The new depot building will be earthquake proof.