Temporary solution caters for car terminal overflow

Salisbury Island will provide long-term answer
TERRY HUTSON
IT’S ONLY a few years since the official opening of Sapo’s Durban Car Terminal and already it is too small. That’s the measure of the mushrooming motor industry in South Africa, with an imbalance in favour of imports that is expected to balance out within the next two or three years as Toyota c omes on stream with a new export programme from the Prospecton plant in Durban. During the past financial year ended March 31, 2006 the terminal handled a record 278 000 motor units – well above the terminal’s design capacity and only made possible by some clever use of available space elsewhere within the port. In the current financial year 2006/07, the terminal is expected to peak at between 330 000 and 340 000 units, according to business unit executive Bev Masson. But, she says, relief is in sight. Sapo has arranged for a temporary ‘car terminal area’ within the port in which cars for import/export can be processed and parked prior to distribution. That place is the cargo handling section behind C berth at the new Point docks area, the so-called Port of Durban 2005 Project, which has been allocated as a ‘secondary’ car terminal that will be used as required to supplement the existing facility. Although lying on the opposite side of the T-Jetty and the terminal, C berth area is easily and, more importantly, securely accessible. In addition it has that magic extra ingredient – another berth for car carriers. That will take care of the immediate needs of the Durban Car Terminal, which handles the bulk of the country’s imports and exports and which is experiencing a growth rate that shows no sign of slackening. But for the long term additional relief is required. Again the planners in both Sapo and the NPA have a solution lined up. By the end of 2009 the Durban Car Terminal will have relocated in its entirety across the harbour to Salisbury Island, where it will take over the use of three berths (101 – 103) on Pier One, vacated by the MPT which has recently relocated to the Point. By then a new open air parking facility will have been constructed in the area adjacent to the island itself (the island being one of those misnomers as it is physically joined to the rest of Durban). To facilitate this the South African Navy and military have agreed to vacate the island for another as yet undetermined facility. And according to Durban’s port manager Basil Ndlovu, the transfer of Salisbury Island to the NPA as landlord, who will lease it to Sapo, has already been negotiated with the Department of Public Works.