Successful cities need thriving industries. NZ has one of the largest and most bountiful Exclusive Economic Zones of ocean in the world. We need to work hard at being the city and port of choice for the fishing and aquaculture industries, and the growing marine engineering, technology and professional services businesses that support them.
We start from a strong base with Nelson being the home for companies such as Sealord, Talley’s, Solander, Westfleet, King Salmon and MacLab. Many port cities in NZ have experienced declines in their fishing fleets and related jobs over the past 30 years as the industry has moved to larger vessels.
We have a natural advantage with our central location at the top of the South Island and sheltered port, but we need to do more to keep them and help them grow.
That’s why our city is making huge investments this year in expanding the infrastructure to support marine engineering. We want to capture more jobs onshore and reinforce Nelson’s position as the seafood capital and lead marine service centre.
Port Nelson, jointly owned by the Nelson and Tasman councils, with support from Government, is investing $20 million in expanding the heavy vessel maintenance facility in Vickerman Street. The new 550-tonne Cimolai travel lift from Italy arrives in 16 containers this week. It will take several months to assemble. The upgrade of pollution controls and 7000sqm new hardstand will be completed by July. This giant travel lift will complement the existing 2400-tonne Calwell slipway by enabling multiple boats to be worked on at one time.
Nelson Marina, fully owned by Nelson City Council, will be progressing a $4 million development in Akersten Street for smaller boats. It is this year upgrading its end-of-life travel lift from 44 tonne and 5.4m beam to a new 110-tonne 8.5m beam travel lift, also a Cimolai. The marina hardstand yard is also being expanded from 8 to 23 berths.
There are many technical problems to overcome to complete these major projects this year, but the prize is Nelson being NZ’s go to place for marine engineering.
