The Victorian Government considers the Port of Hastings to be the preferred site for future container development, once capacity at the Port of Melbourne is reached. Hastings would supplement rather than replace Melbourne and both ports would continue to operate in parallel.
Hastings has the advantage of natural deep water (more than 14m), large areas of vacant land and proximity to the south east of Melbourne – the source and destination of a significant proportion of international container flows in Victoria. However, the development of Hastings for international containers would require substantial supporting infrastructure expenditure and raises significant environmental management issues. These challenges and their impact on logistics chain costs for Melbourne shippers warrant further assessment.
A key task for the Port of Hastings Corporation (PoHC) will be to quickly progress strategic planning activities necessary to preserve the capacity to develop the Port of Hastings to handle containers in the long term. In the short to medium term, Hastings can be expected to focus on specific opportunities in the bulk and break bulk trades, adopting port design and operating practices appropriate to the environmental sensitivity of the area.
Broad community exposure and public exhibition of the planning processes have been undertaken in two stages:
