DREDGE OTAKOU

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26176, 12 June 1946, Page 3

DREDGE OTAKOU

PROGRAMME INCLUDES OAMARU OTAGO BOARD’S CO-OPERATION The Standing Orders were suspended at the special meeting of the Oamaru Harbour Board yesterday to permit the chairman (Mr W. M. Cooper) to report on an interview with the chairman and executive officers of the Otago Harbour Board. Whilst in Dunedin, at the members’ request, Mr Cooper said, he had communicated with Mr W. R. Clarke (chairman of the Otago Board), who had given him an assurance that he was 100 per cent, with the Oamaru Board, and had introduced him to Mr J. Renton (secretary), Mr /■ Swanson (engineer), and Captain F. G. MacDonald (harbour master). It had been very encouraging, Mr Cooper said, to meet such men, who were keenly interested in the position so far as Oamaru was concerned. They had all assured him that they would be pleased to meet the requirements of Oamaru for dredging to the fullest extent, though they could not give any definite date on which the dredge would come to Oamaru, or a date on which the job would be completed. They had assured him that if the present arrangements with Bluff materialised, it might be possible to have the Oamaru dredging completed before Christmas. Mr Cooper said lie had mentioned to the executive officers that when the new harbour master was appointed for Oamaru he would naturally take fresh soundings of the harbour and entrance, and plot them on the chart, and having done that he would proceed to Dunedin to have a conference with them. That would be done before the dredge went to Oamaru. They had certainly been in agreement with the proposal to interview the new harbour master in due course. “ I am sure you all feel the same as I do,” said Mr Cooper, ’’ that this has lifted a suspicion that has, gained momentum m Oamaru, that there was little possibility of getting the Otago boards dredge.” However, he continued, he was not going to elaborate that point, but he indicated that he would wrle personal letters to the chairman and officers of the Otago board, thanking them for their consideration and for the assurances given to him in Dunedin. _ . . The secretary (Mr T. J. Guthrie), who had been called to the telephone, reported back to the board that he had received a message from Mr Renton that the Otago board would be happy to let the Oamaru board have the use of the dredge before Christmas, but they were not in a position tO Mr X is the position. When Bluff is finished there will be a slight overhaul, and the dredge will come t Oamaru, and be home in Dunedin by Christmas "