Plea for children to stop swimming in Gisborne's harbour

Eastland Group chief executive Matt Todd today issued a plea for local high school children to swim safely in local rivers, rather than risk injury in the Inner Harbour area.

“We’ve noticed an increase in the number of teenagers swimming and jumping near busy boat areas in the past few weeks,” he said.

Mt Todd said the company didn’t want to be “fun police” but was concerned someone was going to get hurt.Aside from the ships and tug boats coming in and out of Eastland Port, the harbour was also busy with fishing boats – both commercial and recreational.

“We’ve spoken to the high school principals and they say they’ll talk to the kids at assembly. We’ve also been in touch with Gisborne District Council as the owner of the boat ramp, and our security company has been asked to keep a look-out too.”

Mr Todd said Eastland Port had recently repaired fences after they’d been wrenched up to allow access to the water. “Yes the property damage is a hassle, but the main concern is that someone might be injured, or worse.”

He said Eastland Group was committed to the Zero Harm initiative, a business leaders’ health and safety forum aiming to improve the performance of workplace health and safety in New Zealand.

“We’d hate to see any kind of incident at the harbour, but one involving children would be truly unfortunate, especially when there are so many other safer places to enjoy our local rivers.”

ENDS

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