Napier Port is in Napier,

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, on

Hawke Bay Hawke Bay (), formerly named ''Hawke's Bay'', is a large bay on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, surrounded by the Hawke's Bay region. It stretches from Māhia Peninsula in the northeast to Cape Kidnappers / Te Kauwae-a-Mā ...

. It is the

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's second largest export port by tonnage, and is owned by Napier Port Holdings Limited (). As of November 2024, 55% of Napier Port Holdings Ltd is owned by Hawke's Bay Regional Council through its wholly-owned subsidiary Hawke’s Bay Regional Investment Company. The port is connected to the rail network via the Napier Port Branch (

Ahuriri Branch The Ahuriri Branch, now named the Napier Port Branch, is a 2 km railway branch line off the Palmerston North–Gisborne Line, in Napier, New Zealand. The branch serves the Port of Napier. Ahuriri by the Inner Harbour, originally called S ...

). It hosts dozens of cruise ship visits each year. On 16 February 2008 it was visited by the longest vessel it had received at the time, the

MS Queen Victoria MS ''Queen Victoria'' (''QV'') is a operated by the Cunard Line and is named after the former British monarch Queen Victoria. The vessel is of the same basic design as other Vista-class cruise ships, including . At she is the smallest of Cun ...

cruise ship belonging to

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. On 15 December 2014, the 138,194 tonne MS Voyager of the Seas visited the port, which was the joint 21st largest passenger ship at the time, and the largest to ever visit. On 5 January 2017, the port hosted the world's third largest cruise ship (at the time), the 168,666 tonne MS Ovation of the Seas. Hastings District, as one of the largest apple, pear and stone fruit producing areas in New Zealand has an important relationship with the Napier Port. It has also become an important grape growing and wine production area with the fruit passing from the growers around Metropolitan Hastings and then to Napier for exporting. Napier is an important service centre for the agriculture and pastoral output of the predominantly rural Hastings District. The port handled 157,700 containers (roughly 9% of all containers handled by New Zealand ports) in the 2015 calendar year, behind the ports of Auckland, Tauranga and Lyttelton. A public poll was held in January 1885 on the decision to move the port from the Ahuriri spit to its current location, beneath Bluff Hill. The breakwater harbor was completed in 1886, and the container depot was established in 1994. A new wharf, operational in June 2022 and officially opened in July 2022, was constructed to handle projected volume growth and larger vessels. This was the port's largest ever single investment, completed at a total cost of approximately NZ$175 million. The port currently remains the fourth-largest container terminal in the country, processing more containers than

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and

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combined.

Noise Issues

Expansion of the port (including the handling of larger vessels) has led to increased

noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

, which has met with opposition and protest from residents in the Bluff Hill area. Noise mitigation measures agreed in 2016 have failed to keep pace with the port's expansion and changing operations. Noise monitoring and reporting was undertaken by Napier Port's contracted "noise experts", rather than by independently appointed acoustic consultants. The report
PDF
was released in February 2020. A public consultation in August 2020 failed to offer any resolution for residents, particularly with regard to nighttime noise, and public submissions received no further response from Napier Port or its ownership. Hawke's Bay Regional Council (majority owner of the port) and Napier City Council, as the local government authorities that may have enforced stricter controls on port noise, have failed to provide any such support for residents.

References

External links

*
Ahuriri website
( Port Ahuriri, Napier's main port before relocation)
Cyclopedia of NZ: Napier Harbour Board history 1875-1908, biographies and photos
Buildings and structures in Napier, New Zealand Napier Napier, Port {{HawkesBay-geo-stub