By BRIDGET COOK
THE City of Casey has welcomed a huge funding announcement for the Port of Hastings project, saying the development will be a boon for local economy and jobs.
Last week, Premier Denis Napthine announced $110 million across the next four years to complete the work required to start building a world-class container port with land-side transport connections at Hastings – not expected to be completed for at least 10 years.
When completed, the Port of Hastings will ultimately provide capacity for eight to nine million containers a year, which is almost double the current container capacity of the Port of Melbourne.
City of Casey mayor Amanda Stapledon said the Casey council applauded the Victorian Government’s commitment to planning for the future Port of Hastings.
“The Port of Hastings will be a boon for Melbourne’s south-east, representing a significant economic opportunity providing local jobs for local people,” she said.
“The council looks forward to working with the State Government on the detailed planning and environmental assessments for the port, and its related transport infrastructure, that will need to be undertaken due to its unique and ecologically sensitive environment.”
Dr Napthine said the announcement was great news for Victorian jobs, the economy and the local community.
“Containerised trade in Victoria is predicted to quadruple by 2035 and the only way to provide certainty to meet this expected demand is to invest in infrastructure,” he said.
“In the 1960s, former Liberal premier Sir Henry Bolte had the vision and foresight to set aside almost 4000 hectares of land at Hastings for future port development.
“With this land and Hastings’ status as a naturally deep port, there is no doubt that this is the best option for development to meet our growing freight needs.”
Port of Hastings Development Authority chairman Yehudi Blacher said the task had always been clear and now the resources were in place to begin the port development.
“In addition to managing the port, PoHDA has the specific task of planning for its future development,” he said.
“We got a head start with initial scoping investigations that are already under way and now this new funding will allow us to take the port’s development to the next level.”
