Speed laws set to take $30m toll

Toll NZ is fighting to stop speed restrictions on ferries it says will wipe up to $30 million a year from its Interisland Line's revenues.

Toll Shipping chief Paul Garaty was at Marlborough District Council hearings in Blenheim yesterday when the Cook Strait ferry operator laid out the cost of a council proposal to make all vessels in the Marlborough Sounds slow down to preserve coastal environments.

The problem is that each conventional ferry gets in only three round trips a day. Up to four sailings a day by the Interisland Line's fleet would be lost. This could cost $20 million to $30 million a year.

Interisland Line counsel Stephen Kos told a council hearing that the national economy would lose up to $27 million a year and the regional economy $4.5 million to $6 million.

Kos said a proposed variation to the Marlborough Sounds Resource Management Plan would slow the fast ferry Lynx and the conventional ferries Aratere and Arahura to 15 knots in Tory Channel, forcing each to drop two sailings a day. The conventional ferries travel at up to 21 knots.

"The variation strips them of one-third of their utility; you might just as well remove a third of their passenger, rail and road capacity."

The change would have the same effect as forcing the ferries Arahura and Aratere to lie up in dock for four months of every year.

The loss of return sailings due to the lower speeds would mean up to 90,000 people would be unable to cross Cook Strait and travel through Picton and the Marlborough region.

"And against this, there is no tangible economic benefit that has been able to be identified by the council's economic expert, or ours."

Kos said conventional ferries had been travelling in the sounds at more than 17 knots since 1962 and over the ensuing decades operating speeds had increased by less than one knot a decade. If the speed restrictions go through, the company's options include investing in new ferries which could move faster through non-restricted areas or moving to Clifford Bay.

Toll managing director Paul Little said yesterday that it was a wait-and-see situation and replicating infrastructure was not a priority for the company.

Kos said it had not been shown that a marginal slowdown of five to six knots for conventional ferries would provide any discernible environmental benefits, so it had also not been established that there was a real risk of adverse effect.

Guardians of the Sounds spokesman Peter Beech told the hearing that the sounds environment should not have to subsidise the business of shipping companies.

He said shipping companies were just one section of users trying to impose their will on all stakeholders.

Tory Channel was the most significant ecological area in the Queen Charlotte Sound known as the womb of the sounds because of its biodiversity. "This area is not expendable, it is vital for the future management and restoration of the sounds environment that the womb is protected and nurtured."

- NZPA, STAFF REPORTER