One mayoral aspirant is swimming against the tide of other candidate’s policy around relocating the Ports of Auckland to a new site.
Mayoral candidate Mark Thomas has told the National Business Review that moving the port is not a priority while the city is facing congestion and housing issues in his opinion.
“These are the complex and more urgent priorities that the next Auckland Council should focus on,” says Thomas.
Thomas told the National Business Review after nearly six years as part of the Orakei Local Board he believes Aucklanders have other priorities.
“I have heard much about transport, housing, and other priority community needs,” he says.
“We have the time to focus on Auckland’s more immediate transport and housing priorities, and we do not need to spend the next three years of Auckland Council planning a port move,” says Thomas
Thomas says the research for a new port location will itself cost millions of dollars, and the council shouldn’t spend any money until the triggers tell the council it needs to.
He says the need for a new $5 billion super port is not even satisfied.
“The study says it is possible Auckland’s future will unfold in a way that none of the triggers for a new port will be “pulled,” meaning it could stay at its existing site,” says Thomas.
“Unlike Phil Goff, I don’t believe there is any need to wait for a future government to determine a national ports strategy before Auckland port decisions are made,” he says.
Thomas told the National Business Review that he agrees the council needs to resolve short-term port growth pressures but says the port will have a tough job convincing Aucklanders that extending Bledisloe further into the harbour is the best answer.
“Any 25-45 metre extension of Bledisloe would still leave the 890 metres between Fergusson Wharf and the Stanley Bay Wharf as the narrowest channel between the port and the Devonport peninsula,” says Thomas.
“If the port wants to proceed with its extension argument, it will need a compelling case and much better public engagement than it has undertaken to date,” he says.
According to the National Business Review decisions on moving Auckland’s port will come under Auckland councillors’ microscope on Wednesday.
The councillors will be asked to either send the Port Future Study’s recommendations and the EY consultant’s report to the new council formed after the October elections or ask the chief executive to look at ways to investigate the preferred options of Manukau and Firth of Thames for a new port.
It will also ask the chief executive to prepare a system for monitoring “relocation triggers” over some years before the report is taken up by a new council according to the National Business Review.
The chief executive to prepare a system for monitoring “relocation triggers” before the report is taken up by a new council.
