DEBATE surrounding Newcastle port is heating up in the lead-up to Christmas as more and more people throw in their two cents about its future.
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The state government is fielding bids for a 98-year lease of the port and is doing a study to see if the transaction is value for money.
Only 170 hectares of the 700-hectare lease is available for development, with the remainder to be tied to functional operations.
The state government expects the lease will bring $340 million into Newcastle.
Last week it was reported a group of business people could make a bid for the lease.
Former Newcastle of University professor Steffen Lehmann revealed he had been engaged as a consultant for the group.
Key ideas he had been working on included not cutting the rail any further than Wickham, relocating heavy industrial in Carrington and running light rail down the centre of Hunter Street.
However, the lease is also open to an international deal, with speculation that a private Chinese company that needs a lot of coal would be set to gain the most from the plan.
Meanwhile, the NSW Greens have called on the NSW government to release a scoping study on the privatisation of Newcastle port, which is expected by the end of the year.
The Greens say it is in the public’s interest to know where the intertrade would go, what the future of the old BHP site would be and where the profits from the lease would be made.
