Southdown, New Zealand

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Southdown
Suburb
Table Mountains Of South Auckland.jpg
The containers stacked in the primarily industrial Southdown can sometimes evoke a "table mountains" horizon.
Southdown, New Zealand
CountryNew Zealand
City Auckland Council
Electoral ward Maungakiekie-Tamaki ward
Local board Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Board
Train stations Southdown Train Station (closed)
Oranga Penrose Mount Wellington
Te Papapa
Pfeil oben.svg
Pfeil links.svgSouthdownPfeil rechts.svg
Pfeil unten.svg
 Sylvia Park
(Mangere Inlet)(Mangere Inlet) Westfield

Southdown is an industrial suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. The main company in the suburb was the former Southdown Freezing Works, part of a large industrial zone located near the North Island Main Trunk railway line. The buildings were decommissioned during the 1980s and 1990s, releasing large areas of land to be redeveloped as office parks.

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For many years the abattoirs located here were discharging large amounts of untreated waste into the Manukau Harbour. This had a detrimental effect on the ecology of the harbour, which at the turn of the 20th century had been a popular and attractive place to swim, sail, fish and gather shell fish. For most of the middle of the 20th century it was a health hazard and its shell-fish a probable source of food poisoning. Since the freezing works were fully closed in 1981, [1] the water quality has improved greatly.

The Waikaraka Cycleway ends at the bottom of Hugo Johnston Drive, next to the defunct Southdown Power Station.

Hugo Johnston Drive is the site of a historic 2.5ha asbestos cement dump used by James Hardie Industries from 1938 to 1983. The nearby Southdown Reserve (opposite the defunct Southdown Power Station) has been closed to the public since March 1999, after workers discovered asbestos material there. [2]

Southdown Power Station

The Southdown Power Station was developed by the Southdown Cogeneration Joint Venture, a joint venture between TransAlta and Mercury Energy. [3] The plant had two LM6000 gas turbines and one steam turbine, fueled on natural gas and producing 114MW. The plant was expected to emit about 410,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. [4]

In 2000, Mighty River Power purchased 50% of the plant. [5] and purchased the remainder in 2002. [6]

In March 2015, Mighty River Power announced that it would decommission Southdown Power Station [7] and sell the plant overseas. [8]

Southdown railway station

Southdown railway station was a station on the Southern Line of the Auckland suburban railway network. It was opened to passenger traffic in 1905 and was closed in 2004. [9]

Services were withdrawn by the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) on 30 May 2004 due to low patronage and safety reasons. In the years immediately preceding its closure, patronage had increased on Auckland suburban trains but Southdown had not followed the trend and passenger usage of the station had declined to only approximately forty people per weekday. Safety concerns were raised due to the poor state of the footbridge used to access the platform, and the fact that to access the footbridge, passengers had to cross an unprotected freight siding. [10]

References

  1. ↑ New Zealand Historical Atlas - McKinnon, Malcolm (Editor); David Bateman, 1997, Plate 97
  2. ↑ "Asbestos strife plagues firm". The New Zealand Herald . 30 November 2000. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  3. ↑ Decision 280 (PDF), Commerce Commission, 13 September 1996
  4. ↑ NZPA/NZH (24 March 1995). "Mercury Energy plan to build plant in Auckland". Royal Society of New Zealand. Archived from the original on 12 June 2012.
  5. ↑ Rotherham, Fiona (29 March 2000). "Southdown joint-venture deal in offing". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  6. ↑ "Mighty River Power secures interests in Southdown co-generation plant" (Press release). Mighty River Power. 19 November 2002.
  7. ↑ James Weir (24 March 2015). "Mighty River Power to close Southdown power station". Stuff . Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  8. ↑ "Mighty River shutting down Southdown station". New Zealand Herald. 24 March 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  9. ↑ Scoble, Juliet (2010). "Names & Opening & Closing Dates of Railway Stations" (PDF). Rail Heritage Trust of New Zealand. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  10. ↑ Auckland Regional Transport Authority, "Trains to No Longer Stop at Auckland's Southdown Station from May 30", accessed 3 November 2007.

36°55′23″S174°49′21″E / 36.92293°S 174.822521°E / -36.92293; 174.822521

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