Napier Harbour

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19364, 18 September 1934, Page 5

Napier Harbour

IMPROVEMENT SCHEME. IMPORTANT DECISIONS REACHED. WORK TO BE PUSHED ON. (By Telegrapn.—Press Association.) NAPIER, Tuesday. Substantial progress was made by the Napier Harbour Board yesterday towards the execution of proposals for the development of the port, as recently approved by the ratepayers In a poll on a £385,000 loan proposal. The details of the scheme were fully considered by the board. The designs for two ferro-concrete wharves to be erected were approved, and it was also decided to speed the work up by reducing the period of construction from four and a-half years to three years. To this end the board intends to hire a dredge for six months for supplementing the operations of its own dredge. The two wharves will be substantial, and modernly designed. One will be 800 feet by 818 feet, equipped with cargo sheds and electric cranes, and the 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 existing facilities, six berths for the accommodation of overseas vessels. Tenders for another section of the work of extension of protecting the breakwater by 400 feet are to be called immediately, and tenders for the construction of the two wharves will be called as soon as the dredging of the sites and approaches is sufficiently far advanced. The board also approved of an arrangement 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 the 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 the influx of men from other parts of the Dominion, the board decided on the adoption of a residential qualification, agreeing that no work be granted to men unless resident in the board’s rating district on July 20 last.