Decision on where to move parts of the Ports of Auckland kicked down the road, as a new study suggests it should be moved to the Manukau Harbour, not Northport

North port is a silly idea. Why would you drop off goods in Whangarei and then cart everything south where most things are destined. Ships only need to sail a little farther to reach Auckland or Tauranga. Also visa virsa when shipping out.

Oh well, can kicked far down the road.
One thing I'm sure of - if the port does move, it won't be within the next 10-15 years...

Port of TGA is out performing the Port of Auckland. Why cant North port be similar?

Summary redevelop Marsden Point, the Air base, the Auckland Waterfront with greenlight waterfront stadium and commercial precinct along with the redevelopment of Eden Park as proposed several years ago. Relocate Navy to new Port facilities, the redevelop the Devonport to Americas Cup and boat building facilities. Massive economic boost for Whargarei and Albany areas. Gets naval personnel out of an expensive area of Auckland. Its a 5 years of economic activity to set our grandchildren up for the next 100 years...

You could even print money to do all this to make sure our currency docent get two high vs the USD and Yen as they wage economic printing based warfare on the world.

So, after 15/20 years they will again consider shifting out of Manukau ?

Lets do this(not tomorrow,next year,the year after,next decade,by the turn of the century)Doesn't matter when really,lets keep NZ moving(don't know where to)

Look at the stock photo. The answer is obvious. POAL is a glorified car park. Sometimes it's full and sometimes it's empty. Move vehicle ro/ro ship handling to Northport. Create a vehicle logistics centre on the vacant land around Northport.Onsite compliance facilities for used vehicles. Plenty of land for storing cars and trucks. Sydney moved all of their vehicle imports 80km south to Wollongong years ago. Works fine. Storing cars in the CBD is not cost-effective. The majority of the vehicles new or used need to be moved off the port in Auckland to other storage sites in Auckland then moved again to car yards and compliance centres once they have space or customer orders. Marsden point could offer on-site vehicle compliance and long term storage on the expanded port area. Cars and vehicles could come 150km overnight via road or maybe rail once the line is upgraded to Auckland. Delivery direct to dealers yards etc as required. No double or triple moving. Bledisloe wharf could then be returned to use as a container terminal. As it was before POAL sold off their other car wharves to ACC and Government to defuse their last debt bomb. ACC and POAL will not want to give up any business though. They have invested in a parking building for the imported cars and fancy new cranes and straddle carriers for the containers.

Both Manukau and Firth Thames will need significant dredging initially to allow large ships access to the port areas, plus continual dredging to keep the shipping lanes clear...both will be opposed by the Greens, Maori and others and the consenting will never happen.

I like the idea of 3km (two 1.5km sections) submerged tunnel, bridge or causeways from kawakawa bay out to minimally inhabited Chamberlains island south of waiheke (and from there to Waiheke too). The back side of Chamberlains has deep water and is out of sight of Auckland. Tunnels, rail and roads out there could be paid for by sale of port land.

China will build north port for free, they will do the rail to Auckland at a discount. Only proviso is they use their own labour who will be granted residency upon completion and the Chinese navy will have a 1,000 lease on the port.

Nationals re-election strategy.

In consideration of Manukau, in particular the bar issues, I wonder if any consideration has been given to the mass of black sand moving up the coast from Taranaki. Currently far far north as Port Waikato and expected to effect the Manukau Bar withing the next few yrs?

What ever the considerations of Auckland's port are There is no excuse for the government not to provide North-port with good rail access as it has done for every other regional port in the country. similarly there is no excuse for them not to provide Northland with a decent rail link to the rest of the country. What Auckland does with it's port is it's business, but you cannot suppress the development of Northland because it may not suit Auckland; there has been too much of that already.

I thought the issue with Manukau isnt the bar or the dredging - it was the port is on the wrong side of the island - as the other ports (Tauranga, Napier) are on the East side.

Wouldn't just a bit of landscaping of the port - perhaps a historic looking building or two - block the view from the city and make 90% of people happier about leaving the port where it is? Its the pile of containers I find the most offensive.

You need to keep at least a semblance of a working port in Auckland because its the logical place for ferries and cruise ships - which need tug boats, etc. The container cranes are pretty far down the port from the Central city. And with automatic loading and unloading you could store empties offsite by moving them cheaply and easily on the train (which goes directly into the port) - might need to double track though, but that would be a bonus to Auckland. Seems to me you could shrink the port's footprint dramatically, upgrade Northport (and its rail line), and Bob's your Uncle. That wasn't one of the options considered in this report because they were given the starting premise that the Port has to move.