Eastland Port ‘excited to be doing our bit’

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Eastland Group chief operating officer Andrew Gaddum says he is “reasonably confident” in the long-term viability of the coastal shipping service announced by the prime minister this week.

The Government is to spend $2.75 million to establish the emergency shipping route between Gisborne and Napier, including chartering a vessel for three months, and accelerating Eastland Port's wharf rebuild.

Mr Gaddum told Radio New Zealand he was confident “that we will have, relatively quickly, some pretty full vessels running backwards and forwards”.

But after the three months of Government funding, support from other ports where the service may expand to would be important.

Eastland Port was predominantly a log port with some bulk kiwifruit and squash, which were not shipped in containers.

The new service would move container freight in the form of meat, wool, “a few apples”, kiwi, squash, timber, Mr Gaddum said.

The company was aiming for two trips a week.

Only one berth was currently operating because of a building programme.

Each trip would ship up to 34 full 12-metre containers.

The service would take between 100 and 200 round-trip vehicle movements off the roads.

Mr Gaddum said producers and exporters were sending their goods down to Palmerston North and back up from there to Napier via Palmerston North.

It was a long and expensive trip.

“It's been pretty tough on industry here. We're pretty excited to be doing our bit for the region in terms of shoring up our resilience.”

Mr Gaddum said it was a team effort at the port company to pitch the idea to the Government to open links to the region.