Pitcairn facelift to cost millions

Pitcairn Island is to get an economic and physical facelift.

The historic British territory of 47 people, halfway between New Zealand and South America, made world headlines last year when seven men were tried on sex charges.

It has been losing money for some time and since profits it accumulated from a healthy trade in stamps and other industries ran out, the British taxpayer has been picking up the tab.

But a series of projects should put the island back into profit within three years, says Pitcairn commissioner Leslie Jaques.

He said the island's income, mostly from stamps and tourists, was only $350,000 a year but its overheads were $1.6 million.

The facelift will give the island a new slipway, jetty and breakwater in Bounty Bay, a sealed road on the Hill of Difficulty instead of a mud track, and new business ventures, including commercial honey, eco-tourism and possibly a healthy income from fishing.

Mr Jaques said the British Government was also keen to attract more people back to the island to live and work, with the aim of lifting the population to 100.

Pitcairn, home of Fletcher Christian's mutineers after they took over and burned the British ship Bounty in 1790, had a population peak of 233 in 1939.

The first of two shipments of heavy earth-moving equipment, including a custom-made rock crusher, left Auckland a week ago and Mr Jaques said they would arrive at the island in a few days.

The first projects, the new jetty and sealing the Hill of Difficulty, should be finished by the end of August at a cost of $5 million.

Mr Jaques said one of the headaches of servicing the island was getting gear ashore in the often wave-tossed Bounty Bay.

Plans are also being drawn to build a breakwater to shelter the bay and the jetty so tourists can land safely rather than leaping on to the jetty from the island's motorised long boats. The European Union had allocated $4.25 million for the breakwater and tourism support.

- NZPA