Boost to container port plan
PLANS TO build a deep sea container port at Tees dock, which would give a major boost to its container handling business, creating an estimated 5,500 jobs on Teesside, appeared to be boosted yesterday by small but potentially significant changes to a key Government document.
The Regional Spatial Strategy, which sets the framework for future transport development in the North-east, looked to back a proposal by PD Ports to build a container terminal to rival the southern ports.
Crucially, it said regional government would support proposals to improve the rail link to the dock, without which a deep sea port would be untenable.
A decision by the Department for Transport had been expected before Christmas, and is now thought to be imminent. But how far revisions to the Spatial Strategy would impact on its ruling was unclear, said PD Ports’ managing director Martyn Pellew.
The news had come as surprise, he said. “I wasn’t aware of a revised spatial strategy, but it sounds an improvement. I have not seen the details of it yet.”
Mr Pellew was returning from a second grilling by a cross-party committee on transport, at which he had pressed the case for a deep sea port as an answer to the South east’s congestion problems and part of the economic regeneration of the north.
PD Ports’ full year results, due to be published soon, will show an increase in container handling, while traditional revenue streams, including oil and coal have declined, further strengthening the case for a port capable of handling some of the biggest ships in the world.
Earlier this year, a consortium of shipping lines said it was boycotting London’s docks because of congestion.
A Government spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government, which is responsible for publishing the strategy, said it would neither accelerate nor impede a decision. “The idea of the strategy is that it gives it space to make a decision,” he said.
Asda has already consolidated all its Far Eastern imports at Tees dock and Tesco is expected is waiting for news on whether a second retail warehouse, three times the size of Asda will be built next door.
In January the port signed a forward looking dea to develop its deep sea container business with the Far East. The £300m deep sea port would be major attraction to companies importing from the tiger economies of China and India, said Mr Pellew.
He said discussions with Malaysian-based freight forwarding company Infinity, which runs long-distance vessels from South East Asia to Europe and America will act as PD Port’s agent was moving forward.
