Making Room for Fiji Industry

THIS is the land that Suva has built by pushing down a hill and filling in swampy, waste land along side Walu Bay and along the harbour front north of the wharf area.

Suva has grown abnormally in re cent years, but new industry has had little room to establish itself in the existing town. By this reclamation and the expenditure of £93,000 the town has gained about 32 acres which are now being divided into in dustrial blocks which will be let at a fixed annual rental. Along the Walu Bay frontage provision will be made for storage of firewood, gravel,

coral blocks, etc., for sale in Suva.

Barges can come right alongside.

The reclamation was part of the Colony’s Development Plan and was undertaken by a Christchurch firm, Williamson Construction Co. Most of the material for the reclamation came from the site known as the Old Hospital Hill upon which the Harbour Master’s house previously stood. The work was begun in 1949 and coincided with the wettest year in Suva’s very wet record. Something like 300 inches fell while the work was being done and caused heartbreaking de lavs—although it had the advantage of consolidating the filling after it

had been bulldozed into place. The whole area became a sea of mud and a road which ran through the centre of it had to be abandoned for a time.

The providing of this much needed land—as yet one of the few tangible results of Planned Development in the post-war Pacific area—will be blessed by Suva’s industry now and in years to come.

The heading photograph shows the Walu Bay section in 1947 before work began on reclaiming land between the areas marked A and B. Formerly this land was mangrove swamp. In the foreground are the workshops of Millers, Ltd., built on ground that had previously been reclaimed.

The lower photographs show, top left, part of the 32 acre reclamation, which is now being subdivided for industrial blocks. At the right is part of Walu Bay, the reclaimed foreshore of which will be used for depots for firewood, gravel, etc.

Barges are shown lying off.

The photo at lower left gives some idea of the quagmire that developed after the phenomenal rains of 1949- 50. Workmen are endeavouring to lay new water pipes (see right) and the light coloured area on the left is part of the road that crossed the area—before the rains came.

At lower right, Walu Bay is shown centre, the new reclamation to right of it, Carpenter’s oil mill on the other side of Walu Bay; Suva Town is beyond and to the left of the mill.