NAPIER HARBOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 222, 19 September 1934, Page 8

NAPIER HARBOUR

DEVELOPMENT PLANS TWO NEW WHARVES THE BOARD'S DECISIONS. ( Per Frees Association ). NAPIER, Sept. lg. Substantial progress was made by the Napier Harbour Board yesterday towards the execution of proposals for the development of the port recently approved by the ratepayers in the poll on the £335,000 loan proposal. Details of the scheme were fully considered by the board. Designs for two ferro-con-crete wharves to be erected were approved, and it also decided to speed the work up by reducing the period of construction from 4j years to three. To this end the board 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 be substantial and modernly designed. One will ba 800 feet by 181 feet, equipped with cargo sheds and electric cranes, and tha other will be 750 feet by 81, 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 of extension of the protecting breakwater by 400 feet are to be called immediately, and tenders for the construction of the two wharves will b« called as soon rs the dredging of. tbs sites and approaches is sufficiently fai advanced. The board also approved the arrange ment 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 th* 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 an influx of men from other parts, the board decided on the adoption of a residential qualification, agreeing that no work be granted to men unless they were resident in the board’s rating district on Julv 20 last.