Category: General

Everything else

Port of Auckland increase Port Rail Shuttle Services

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Now running 16 services a week

 

From Voxy

Ports of Auckland increases freight rail service

Tuesday, 2 September, 2014 – 12:29

 

Working with KiwiRail, Ports of Auckland has doubled the rail services between its Waitematā seaport and Wiri Intermodal Freight Hub.

The increased service starts this week and will bring the port to the doorstep of importers and exporters in South Auckland, potentially reducing the number of trucks coming into the seaport and opening up more space to handle growing volumes.

Ports of Auckland General Manager Commercial Relationships Craig Sain said, “This is just the beginning. With our developments in Palmerston North and Wiri, we’re on our way to make more effective and increased use of rail to improve our service offering.”

“Containers moved by rail was up by 64% in 2013/14, but it is still a small percentage of the total containers coming through the port. We’d like to see this number grow over the coming years,” he said.

In 2010, with the opening of the Wiri Intermodal Freight Hub, KiwiRail ran four services of 23 wagons a week in each direction. Over time, this number increased to eight services and starting today there will be sixteen services a week.

“There is ample capacity on the line to the Port to increase services further and we will continue to work with KiwiRail to get the most out of the line,” Mr Sain said.

KiwiRail General Manager Sales – Freight Alan Piper said, “Ports of Auckland’s drive to increasingly move freight by rail to its Wiri inland port has seen a rapid increase in growth of daily services this year. This is a great example of KiwiRail working closely with its customers and provide flexible growth capacity to enable more use of rail to transport goods around the country.”

The Wiri Intermodal Freight Hub is operated by CONLINXX, a subsidiary of Ports of Auckland and offer greater efficiencies and flexibility for exporters and importers who are able to drop off and pick up containers without having to negotiate the Auckland motorways.

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Source: http://www.voxy.co.nz/business/ports-auckland-increases-freight-rail-service/5/200972

 

Something I will keep in the back of my mind as I head up to Town Hall on Thursday and will be bringing up the Manukau South Link at the time.

 

Unitary Plan Hearings Under-Way

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Day One Begins

 

From Auckland Council

Hearings on shaping Auckland’s development underway

 

New Zealand’s largest planning review gets underway in Auckland today with an Independent Hearings Panel beginning its deliberations on Auckland Council’s  Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan.

The hearing is before Environment Court judge, David Kirkpatrick who chairs the Panel, and seven panel members. There are also 15 mediators and facilitators who will help resolve issues through expert conference and mediation.

The Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan sets the rules about how the Auckland region will develop over decades, including what can be built and where, and how to protect the environment and Auckland’s built and cultural heritage.

More than 9500 submissions were made on the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan.  The Panel will consider the views of submitters – plus a further 3500 submitters who have responded to the original submissions – over 74 topics.

Judge Kirkpatrick said the hearing is the biggest ever in New Zealand planning history because it involves the Regional Policy Statement and both the Regional and District Plan documents all wrapped up  in one document.

“There’s been a huge number of submissions and a high level of public participation – and that’s a good thing for such an important document,” said Judge Kirkpatrick.

He said the requirements of the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act made this hearing different from the traditional adversarial planning hearing. The Act has a requirement that the Panel use pre-hearing processes and mediation to help identify the most appropriate planning position for the Auckland region.

“So there’s a large level of the ‘Good of the Auckland region’ objective here rather than simply saying which side wins and which side loses,” said Judge Kirkpatrick.

“With the complex issues involved we have to have a very clear high-level regard for the sustainable management of the resources of the whole Auckland region. If we adopted a solely technical approach to our task we would ‘miss the wood for the trees’.”

He said the Panel is working to an extremely tight timeframe to complete its report to Auckland Council by July 2016 on changes it thinks should be made to the plan.

The Panel will be working through a process ‘from the general to the particular’.  It will start with the Regional Policy Statement issues such as rural/urban growth, residential and industrial growth and higher level transport issues. It will then deal with the more specific rule-based issues and then move on to the site-specific changes.

“It’s important that we have integration between the higher-level objectives and strategy of the plan and the methods on the ground,” said Judge Kirkpatrick.

“We could compromise a policy very easily by simply by having exceptions to the rules which give away its validity.”

Judge Kirkpatrick said the Panel is endeavouring where possible to come to decisions on issues when the Panel hears from submitters.

“It’s better that we do it when we hear from people, but we acknowledge that as we go through we are likely to have to go back and reconsider some of the things we have decided.

“We need to make sure that our decision-making has been consistent throughout and that the recommendations we are making to Council produce an integrated set of planning provisions.”

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The Hearings’ Order Paper

 

The Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel website can be found here: http://www.aupihp.govt.nz/

 

Talking Auckland will keep a roving update from the Hearings Panel as relevant information comes to hand

 

Back Tomorrow

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After a nice long weekend in Tauranga (I come back up to Auckland) this afternoon and one heck of a £%$” storm with Dirty Politics also over the weekend, Talking Auckland will be back full steam tomorrow with your Auckland issues and commentary.

Coming up this week:
1) The Southern Initiative finally gets going
2) The continuation of the Auckland Commuter Journey Series
3) If I can land it, a chat with Auckland Development Chair and Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse on the first look at the 10 Spatial Priorities and what they might mean for Auckland.
4) If Auckland Transport come back by Thursday the Manukau South Link and where we go from there

Four Southern Initiative Projects

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I am putting together some Southern Initiative posts reflecting on some good news finally for this project after four years of flak including of me.

Four projects are under way covering different aspects of The Southern Initiative, those projects cover:
1) Social Infrastructure (enabling communities to participate in the Digital World)
2) Land Use Planning x2: The Otara-Papatoetoe Area Plan which is working through the motions before implementation next year, and the Spatial Priorities project the Auckland Development Committee will be working through. Manukau City Centre is one of those bigger Spatial Priorities that would be carried out
3) Physical Infrastructure from both NZTA and Auckland Transport

I will run these along side the Auckland Commute series that I have been running as I prepare to tie this all up.

More next week but good to see the Southern Initiative finally getting underway and some positive news