Scott Hammond/Stuff
Wine and other goods from Marlborough’s primary industries will be handled at a new inland port to be built at Riverlands, south of Blenheim.
A new inland port is being developed in Marlborough by Port Nelson to support the flow of wine and other goods from the region’s primary industries.
The development, at Riverlands, south of Blenheim, will initially be on a 1.4ha site, containing 5000sq m of warehousing for storage and packing, as well as a facility for container operations and storage.
It is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
A further 2.6ha immediately next to the site has been reserved for future development of the Marlborough Inland Port.
READ MORE:
* Can Marlborough’s roads cope with the extra traffic from larger ferries?
* Nelson included in national port safety inquiry
* Marlborough wineries get creative to get through ‘fast and furious’ vintage
The inland port will be next to New Zealand’s largest wine bottler, WineWorks Marlborough, to enable the efficient transfer of stock to and from the bottling plant as well as the use of “electric tugs” to reduce emissions.
It will have storage capacity for empty and full containers, tanker and tank container wash facilities and space for repairs.
Port Nelson chief executive Hugh Morrison said as well as wine, other goods, such as sawn timber, seafood, vegetables and horticultural products from Marlborough’s primary producers would flow through the inland port as part of the transport and shipping process in the top of the south.
With the current wine crop 40% up on last year, the port company was facing major volume movements this year. Increasing wine movements, combined with a growing number of vineyards meant developing the inland port was “the right move”, Morrison said.
supplied
The Marlborough Inland Port will be built next to Wineworks Marlborough at Riverlands, south of Blenheim.
“We do have a presence there (in Marlborough) now, but this is really picking up that key export stream which is wine, bulk and bottled,” he said. “We’re able to offer more container support than previously.”
QuayConnect, the logistics division of Port Nelson, is driving the development of the hub, but the port company does not own the land.
The inland port was a collaboration between multiple parties, Morrison said, with the port company the founding tenant, working with developers Atacama over what it needed in the facility.
Consent and design work would be finalised within six months, before building began, he said.
The supply chain already established by QuayConnect moves empty wine bottles in trucks from Port Nelson, after they have been removed from containers, to Blenheim bottling facilities and the trucks return with a full loads of export wine.
The system, established in 2017, saves about 1600 tonnes of carbon a year from reduced truck movements, the port company said.
Supplied
Port Nelson chief executive Hugh Morrison says with a growing volume of wine movements, developing the Marlborough Inland Port is the right move.
QuayConnect has also established a bulk wine loop for a major Marlborough exporter which sees full tank containers of wine exported from Marlborough through Port Nelson to Australia and then returned full of Australian wine for packaging in Marlborough.
“Marlborough importers and exporters will be better served with a facility on their doorstep offering container and product storage and warehousing connected to an established logistics service,” said QuayConnect general manager Jaron McLeod.
Central Express Ltd, a key transport partner to both QuayConnect and the wider Marlborough wine industry, will be a tenant at the inland port.
Central Express managing director Jason Millar said they were excited about the Marlborough Inland Port, which would “provide connectivity and add resilience to supply chains, giving confidence to exporters in the top of the south”.
WineWorks chief executive Peter Crowe said the inland port would be a real asset not only to the wine industry but also the wider Marlborough community.
Morrison said offices would be built at the facility which could accommodate other companies connected to logistics in the future.
