BATTLE OF THE PORTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 March 1924, Page 4

BATTLE OF THE PORTS.

TOTAL COST OF £21,500,000,

Five great dock extension schemes, to cost £-21,50(1,000 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 lor ships up to 1000 ft in length and displacing probably 00,000 tons, shipowners show a tendency to build smaller ships. 1 lie three largest- at present under construction are all below 30,000 Lons.^ 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 Tie enlarged later to 1150ft*. The cost is £5,000,000 without the price of the land fo he acquired, and the approximate date ot completion is 1028. Southampton is seeking powers for an extension to cost 010,000,000, which will provide berthing lor an additional 20 medium-sized vessels at five jetties each 1000 ft long. Plans lor a new oil-fuel depot across Southampton water, at Marelnvood, have been submitted to tho Board of Trade.

Liverpool is extending the Gladstone Dock at an expenditure of £3,500,000. This will provide nearly three miles of new quays and -1-1 acres of sheds. Part of the extension is to he opened this autumn. New oil-fuel storage is to bo added to the 81,500 tons eapacity alreadv built.

The Clyde authorities are putting forward in the Shieldhall and Renfrew scheme a plan to build the largest basin in Britain. It is to cost 22,000,000, and 2000 men are to be at work on tlic excavations this winter. Plymouth’s Port Development Committee is still advocating extensions, the scheme most generally favoured being that in the Cattlcwatcr. Bristol lias adopted a scheme for extending the Royal Edward Dock 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 shin traffic.

Havre has built n new qua,: to take ships up to 2-1,000 tons, and an extension in the outer harbour is under eonstrucion which will include a dry dock for the largest vessels afloat.

Boulogne, which is already a port ot call for the Ifolland-America line, is constructing a series of moles to provide a roadstead available at all limes to other large ships. Cherbourg, which is pre-eminently the great ship port of the continent, is not despising its rivals. A committee of tlie 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.