THE PORT OF DUNEDIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25302, 12 August 1943, Page 4

THE PORT OF DUNEDIN

The decision by the Otago Harbour Board to authorise a scheme proposed by the chairman, Mr Thompson, for improvements to the approaches to the Upper Harbour is in the direct line of progress. As a member rightly remarked, there can be no “standing still” in the matter of meeting shipping demands —the port must either advance with the times or decline in importance and in status. The scheme, as outlined, provides for the widening of the channel between Goat and Quarantine Islands by 100 feet to. 400 feet, and of Victoria Channel and the swinging basin, and for the construction of new sheds at Dunedin. The advantage to be derived from this work would be that many ships which at the present time are unable, or are forbidden by their owners, to berth in the Upper Harbour could proceed to Dunedin to discharge and load cargo. On past figures, over six years to September, 1940, the number of vessels that could have come to Dunedin if the channel had been widened and deepened as is now proposed, instead of berthing at Port Chalmers, and could have loaded at Dunedin to the extent to which they loaded at Port Chalmers, is 104. Not all the vessels, however, that visited Port Chalmers in this period could have proceeded to the Upper Harbour had the scheme now in contemplation been complete. The benefit to the Upper Harbour would obviously be gained at the expense of the Lower Harbour, a fact which naturally will not make the scheme acceptable to Port Chalmers. But the Harbour Board has to base its decision on the wider question of ultimate benefit to the Port

of Otago as an entity. The board’s assumption is that post-war shipping conditions will correspond more or less closely with the pre-war period as to the length and draught of cargo carriers—in other words,' its premises for the era beyond 1950 are based exactly upon conditions in the era which ended in 1940. On this ground its plans might be subjected to the criticism that the past does not provide the best guide to the future. It is essential to take into consideration, first, the possible redirection of trade in the Pacific, and, secondly, the unpredictable part that air transportation may play in the after-war world. Mr Thompson has described the estimated cost of channel widening, £50,000, as only a fraction of the money already spent in developing the Upper Harbour; but, while this is true, it is reasonable to add that his estimate covers only a fraction of the cost of the new scheme, which calls also, aside from lesser items, for an expenditure of £ 98,000 for extra shed accommodation at the Dunedin wharves. The proposal involves, therefore, an estimated expenditure of a minimum of about £150,000 to secure material though possibly limited advantages to the Port of Dunedin at a commensurate loss to Port Chalmers. It must, incidentally, come sharply into conflict with the hopes and plans of those who visualise the establishment of an airport on the South Endowment. It appears from the ‘ chairman’s report that the new work cannot be commenced, at least in its major aspects, until 1945. This may be regarded as fortunate, in the sense that in two years’ time indications as to the future trends in transportation may be plainer than in the present period of concentration upon the extraordinary demands for transport during the war.