The Grey District Council has spent $350,000 on a dredge that's been dubbed a "lemon" as fishing boats get stuck at sea or on the wharves at the height of the hoki season.

Jeff Drake, Greymouth manager for fishing company Talley's, said the Grey River had built up so much that fishing boats could not operate for 12 hours daily.

"We are restricted to operating between 2.5 and 3 hours either side of high tide. Most ports you can come and go as you please. We can only operate with a six hour window. We have five large trawlers that take a couple of hours to deal to so someone is missing out. We can't unload them all in time," he said.

Some boats were not getting back to port in time, and others were missing the window to get back to sea and had to wait another six hours before sailing again.

"It is affecting our production definitely," Drake said. He said it was also a safety issue.

The Grey River bar was notoriously dangerous and the council-operated port silting up made it more difficult, Drake said.

"It's building up and gets worse and worse every year. The dredge is a lost cause. [The council] have spent so much money trying to get it going for the past three years and it's still not working. Typical politicians, they don't want to look a fool falling on their sword and owning up to losing money on a stupid project," he said.

Grey district mayor Tony Kokshoorn said the council bought the dredge for $250,000 three years ago. It spent another $100,000 trying to get it operating.

"It's picked up the nickname 'The Lemon'. We have been trying to get it operating for two years but I am confident it will work and do the job. It's not really a lemon. We've had a series of problems including needing the right people with the right certification to operate it," he said.

The council had the right people employed, but it had broken down again, Kokshoorn said.

"We've got a problem with the pump again. We can fix the pump no problem but it's a little dredge not designed for a full dredge. It can be used for maintenance only. The port is busy at the moment and really needs to be done so we are working with the Government at the moment asking them to assist us urgently with dredging it out completely."

It would cost $700,000 to dredge the whole port out, he said. He acknowledged that the fishing industry was frustrated, but he wanted to keep the cost to ratepayers down. The port had not made a profit in 50 years, he said.

Meanwhile, he had applied for $4 million from the Government's provincial growth fund to redevelop the Greymouth port. The fishing industry was one of the few growing industries on the West Coast and council was keen to support it, he said.