Wharf car yard costly to shift: report
A newly released report shows that moving vehicle imports from Ports of Auckland to Northport or Port of Tauranga could cost 10,000 jobs.
The report prepared for Auckland mayor Phil Goff, who has supported plans to move imports, showed that moving the port could cost $1 billion and reduce the value of the port by $170 million, RNZ reported.
Ports of Auckland reported a 5 per cent rise in container volumes in the past year, and a 20 per cent jump in imported vehicles, which was placing pressure on the wharves.
In its 30-year master plan released last month the port proposed to increase berth space and build a five-storey car park to provide more capacity, hide cars from view and release space.
This year, port chief executive Tony Gibson said the company had been asked to investigate the idea of removing cars from the wharf and shipping them into Northland, but the carbon emissions did not make it worthwhile.
‘‘We’re coming out in October with a wider port development plan, and what people will see is we’re being very transparent about what we need to do,’’ he said then.
The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, which prepared the report, said moving imports was inefficient as most imported vehicles arriving at Auckland would be bought by users living in the city.
The report found that Northport and Port of Tauranga would have to invest $156m and $160m respectively to manage the trade.
It valued the gain from reclaiming the use of the some of the 12.5 hectares used for vehicle imports at about $115m, but put the net cost of shifting to Northport at $943m, or $1.05b to Tauranga.
The Auckland Council has had a version of this report since May.
Goff’s spokesman, Michael Burgess, said the mayor wanted to move the port from Auckland’s CBD but would like to see it remain in the Auckland region.
Any changes had to have a strong business case.
He said the Government was looking at the terms of reference for a review of upper North Island ports and the supply chain.