BATTLE OF THE PORTS

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11783, 20 March 1924, Page 11

BATTLE OF THE PORTS

PLANS FOR NEW DOCKS TOTAL COST OF £21,500,000. GIANT SHIPS PUZZLE. Five great dock extension schemes, to cost £21,500,000 —three of them for “the largest ships in the world”—are under consideration in, Britain at present. The battle of the ports becomes fiercer every year, although while harbour authorities are planning for ships up to 1000 ft in length and displacing probably 60,000 tons, shipowners show a tendency to build smaller ships. The three largest at present under construction are all below 30,000 tons. London’s largest dock scheme is at Tilbury, where a basin 115 acres in extent is to be constructed with an 800 ft dry dock, to he enlarged later to 1150 ft. The cost is £5,000,000 without the price of the land to be acquired, and the approximate date of completion is 1928. Southampton is seeking powers for an extension to cost’ £10,000,000, which will provide berthing for an additional 20 medium-sized vessels at five jetties each 1000 ft long. Plans for a now oil-fuel depot across Southampton water, at Marchwood, have been submitted to the Board of Trade. OTHER HUGE SCHEMES IN VIEW. Liverpool is extending the Gladstone Dock at an expenditure of £3,500.000. This will provide nearly three miles of new quays and 14 acres of sheds. Part of the extension is to be opened this autumn. New oil-fuel storage is to be added to the 81,500 tons capacity already built. The Clyde authorities are Witting forward in the Shieldhall and Renfrew scheme a plan to build the largest basin in Britain. It is to cost £2,000,000, and 2000 men are to be at work on the excavations this winter. Plymouth’s Port Development Committee is still advocating extensions, the Scheme most generally favoured being that in the Cattlewater. Bristol has adopted a scheme for extending the Royal Edward Dook at Avonmouth at a cost of £1,000,000, with a grant from the National Unemployment Grants Committee. This will take four years to complete. FRENCH PORTS ALSO BATTLING.

French ports in the meanwhile are battling on their own account to attract large-ship traffic. Havre has built a new quay to take ships up to 24,000 tons, ana an extension in the outer harbour is under construction which will include a diy dook for the largest vessels afloat. Boulogne, which is already a port of call for the Holland-America fine, is constructing a series of moles to provide a roadstead available at all times to other large ships. Cherbourg, which is pre-eminently the great ship port of the continent, is not despising its rivals. A committee of the Cherbourg Chamber of Commerce visited Britain last year to examine the working of the ports, before drafting a scheme for developments in their own harbour. Rotterdam and Hamburg have large extension schemes in hand.