The recently-demolished `By the Sea' property on Bermuda's north shore could be the future site of a container ship port, Works & Engineering Minister the Hon. Leonard Gibbons said yesterday.

"It certainly would make a lot of sense, in my opinion,'' Mr. Gibbons told The Royal Gazette .

"It is a possibility in the next five years, but something like that would likely take ten years to develop.'' With the recent return of the American Bases to Bermuda, there has been talk of moving the container ship port from Front Street in Hamilton to Marginal Wharf at St. David's or the US Naval Annex in Southampton.

"The problem is that you need a container port near where the containers are going to go,'' Mr. Gibbons said. "Even if you dredge Marginal Wharf (so it could better accommodate the large container ships), then you've got to drag the containers across the causeway.'' Mr. Gibbons said there had been "studies'' and long-term planning about developing a container port on the north shore, but there were no immediate plans for `By the Sea', across North Shore Road from the Tynes Bay Incinerator.

"The north shore is very exposed and it would be an expensive operation to build a port there,'' the Minister said. However, "one has to think of long-term planning''.

Mr. Roger Sherratt, secretary of the Corporation of Hamilton, said work continued to improve the City's container port, and it was hoped it could continue to serve ships for many years to come.

"The port of Hamilton provides the Corporation with a fairly large proportion of its annual income,'' Mr. Sherratt said. "If that income were lost then the Corporation would have to look for alternative sources.

"You couldn't just replace that income by increasing taxes. The merchants and the residents just wouldn't be able to handle the kind of increased taxes that would be needed to make up for that loss of income.'' Mr. Sherratt noted that there had been a dock in Hamilton since it was founded as a town in 1793. In fact, "the principal reason for citing the Town of Hamilton here ... was because it had a sheltered harbour.'' Government's plan would be to retain Hamilton as the cruise ship port, but "the other thing that could impact on the whole issue is the size of the cruise ships'', Mr. Gibbons said.

The ever-increasing size of cruise ships was just one reason Hamilton had to make sure its dock "changes with the times'', Mr. Sherratt said. "That's what the Corporation is doing.'' As well as looking at ways to accommodate larger ships, the City was about to implement part of a recommendation from the 1982 Barbera Report that would allow container trucks to queue on the docks, instead of on Front Street.

"That was a major concern -- the fact that it made Front Street unsightly,'' Mr. Sherratt said.

But Mr. Gibbons said problems remained, even if the trucks are moved off Front Street in about two weeks, as expected. "The Hamilton waterfront is too valuable to have a container port there,'' Mr. Gibbons said. "It to me just makes sense over time to look elsewhere.'' Mr. Sherratt said "building a new cargo dock anywhere would be a multi-million-dollar project.

"As long as our docks can continue to service Bermuda, it would seem the Country would have to decide whether it wants to spend many millions of dollars on a new port.'' Government has been criticised for demolishing `By the Sea', which is the old ZFB building. But Mr. Gibbons said it was too costly to leave the abandoned building standing.

"The building was in a condition that it would cost an awful lot to put it to any useful purpose. Government is looking to reduce our holdings, if you will.

"Every building we have we have to maintain and we have to insure. The cost of keeping a building is very expensive.''