Our gateway to prosperity

Sep 19 2006 By Evening Gazette

Welcome to our new-look comment column in which leading figures from the business community in the Tees Valley will present a thought-provoking view on an issue affecting their company or the wider community. Today, Martyn Pellew, PD Ports group development director.

It comes as no surprise that container handling is the fastest growing maritime shipping sector, in line with growing global demand.

In the past ten years the volumes of containers handled by UK ports (now eight million a year) has almost doubled.

The World Bank has recently revised its forecasts for economic growth in China up from 9.5% to 10.4% per annum. This growth will fuel even greater flows of cargoes from East to West.

As a result, new deep sea port capacity is necessary somewhere in the UK.

Last year the UK had a flow of over 580 million tonnes of cargo through its maritime ports. Imports last year grew to 350 million tonnes, up by 9.7 million tonnes on the previous year.

The fastest growth sub sector was containers of goods from the Far East, particularly China.

At present most items in those containers are imported through southern UK ports, yet around half are in fact destined for Northern consumers.

The process industry in the North-east can be a major beneficiary of the increase in UK imports.

The greater the flows into the UK, the more attractive the freight rates will be for any UK export traffic.

Teesport is unusual among UK ports with a 2:1 ratio of exports to imports. This makes Teesport potentially an attractive port of call for delivering imports of consumer goods destined for UK retailers whilst also having the opportunity to collect outbound cargoes from process sector manufacturers.

We at PD Ports therefore welcome the recent May publication of the Government's Ports Policy Review and have formally responded to the consultation in our efforts to assist the Government in its development of a strategy that better reflects broader UK objectives.

Increasing the use of regional ports, especially those in the North of England, will also help address the economic disparity between the North and South identified by the Northern Way at over £30bn.

The current over-reliance on South East ports has led to severe congestion in the South and is holding back economic growth in the North.

The Ports Policy Review presents the UK Government with a crucial opportunity to take tonnes of freight off Britain's congested roads and stimulate regeneration.

Everyone accepts that the UK needs more port capacity to deal with increased international trade, particularly with the Far East, but the UK needs a more balanced approach that recognises the contribution of the regions.

Our own proposal to expand the North-east port of Teesport into a deep sea container terminal could bring over 5,500 new jobs and £300m of private inward investment.

We would be building on brownfield land, and the creation of the Northern Gateway at Teesport could remove over 900,000 containers of further growth from roads in the South.

This would save more than 150 "food miles" per container - a reduction of over 70 million lorry miles per annum in the UK.

PD Ports is a strong believer that having a world class port on our doorstep here in the North-east will play a vital part in attracting further inward investment to the process industries cluster in the Tees Valley and the wider region. PD Ports is extremely grateful for the help of North East Process Industries Cluster and its members in our planning submission to create the Northern Gateway container terminal at Teesport.