56 | Point Lumber REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Farmers the main clientele Point Lumber has 13 staff at the Washdyke headquarters, and another working at Pleasant Point. T T Hugh de Lacy Farmers are doing it tough, a factor which has softened demand for fencing and other posts from the Washdyke, Timaru-based Point Lumber Ltd but, while staff numbers have necessarily fallen, business is ticking over steadily as it awaits the hoped-for recovery in agricultural export prices. Farmers make up by far the main clientele for Point Lumber, which gets it name from Pleasant Point where it has a 2.9ha yard where all the tanalising treatment takes place. The business was shifted to Pleasant Point in the late 1990s after the parents of managing-director Sean Sloper, Glenis and David Sloper, sold their Ruapuna farm in Canterbury which had been the base for the logging operation and post sales they’d started years before. Sean then acquired the site in Washdyke which sports a sales office and is where all post-production work is done, while Pleasant Point looks after the treating of the posts and their storage. Point Lumber has 13 staff at the Washdyke headquarters, and another working at Pleasant Point, and it acquires its timber from all over the MacKenzie Country and as far north as Ashburton and Mid-Canterbury. The company manufactures and supplies fence posts, timber and associated products to farmers, fencing contractors, agricultural supply wholesalers and the general public. “Previously we had up to 20 staff working with us, but when the agricultural export markets turn sour, we feel it,” Sales Manager Andrew Gillespie says. “People – especially farmers – are very nervous these days about spending dollars, and though we’re expecting an improvement we’ve seen no sign of it yet.” “The timber treatments we use are the Arch Wood Protection products, and we also carry the Tanalised Diamond label ensuring our logs have the best possible protection.” Logs are sourced from a variety of places but Polnt Lumber has a special relationship with the United States-based international forest management and production company Blakely FML and Laurie’s Forestry which own a 3000ha forest in Otago and a further 35,000ha in the North Island, and it also manages others around the country and overseas. Point Lumber is involved in all stages of the harvesting process, from the felling of the trees through to processing them into specific logs sizes, then steam-drying and tanalising. Posts are treated to H4 level, and barnpoles, another key product, to H5. “We use all the parts of the tree in the most sustainable ways, with any off-cuts being sold as firewood, wood-chips or sawdust,” Andrew says. “Our Washdyke sales yard also stocks a wide range of products vital to the timber and fencing industries, including those from McVicar Timber, Tornado Gates, Beattie Insulators, the Euro Corporation and BSN Fittings – a one-stop-shop for all your fencing needs. “The timber treatments we use are the Arch Wood Protection products, and we also carry the Tanalised Diamond label ensuring our logs have the best possible protection.” Point Lumber has been constantly upgrading its steam and treatment plant at considerable cost to be compliant and more eco-friendly, with its boiler running solely on wood-chip bio-fuel. Point Lumber has its own fleet of delivery trucks, ranging from small to large, and fitted with cranes for efficient delivery. 027 455 2232 rikicook@outlook.co.nz Proudly supporting Point Lumber.
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