PD Ports - Campaign for strategic approach

Sep 14 2006 North East Vision

It comes as no surprise that container handling is the fastest growing maritime shipping sector, in line with growing global demand. In the past 10 years the volumes of containers handled by UK ports (now eight million pa) 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. Why should the existing ports in the South be allowed to expand?

There is a significant opportunity elsewhere in the North of England at existing ports, such as Teesport, which can be competitive in this important growth market.

Growth in the UK economy over recent years has given rise to an ever increasing flow of goods into Britain from overseas sources.

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 fast growth sub sector was containers of goods from the Far East, particularly China. At present most items in those containers reach UK retailers' shelves after having been imported through one of our Southern ports.

Yet a significant number of those goods, around half, are in fact destined for consumers in the North. Why not reduce this burden of transporting goods landed in the south only to be transported up North via the congested UK infrastructure of road and railways?

PD Ports has welcomed the recent publication of the Government's Ports Policy Review and has responded to the consultation in its efforts to assist the Government in its development of a strategy that better reflects broader UK objectives.

The company has campaigned for more than a year for a more strategic approach to ports planning that reflects the ability of ports to deliver much needed economic and social regeneration in the regions, speeds up planning decisions and increases the competitive ability of the UK.

Ports policy must also recognise that better utilising the domestic distribution network including far better use of the sea around our shores, can play an important role in reducing congestion and pollution.

Increasing the use of regional ports, especially those in the North, will also help address the economic disparity between the North and South identified by the Northern Way at over £30bn. Unless policies change this gap will only widen

Our own exciting port development on Teesside is progressing, following the recently submitted plans to create a £300m deep sea container terminal at Teesport.

The planning submission comes after months of preparation work on a detailed environmental impact assessment, undertaken by our consultant engineers Royal Haskoning and also follows on from an extensive public consultation process this spring. The plans have widespread support.

The Northern Gateway project would see an increase in the number and size of container carrying vessels passing through Teesport.

Approval of the project will provide Northern England with facilities that would rival any UK competitors and create the potential to handle the larger vessel sizes now originating from the Far East. This cargo is known as deep sea traffic.

Strong growth of manufacturing in the Far East has led to a huge increase in the volume of ship and cargo movements from east to west, especially container volumes.

The size of ships is also increasing to accommodate the growing levels of international exports packed into larger containers. The size of containers is growing to cope more productively with the increasing volumes.

These factors produce an indisputable requirement to enhance UK port capabilities in order to accommodate these new larger ships. Similarly, rail facilities close to UK ports need enhancing to cope with the larger containers. This is known as rail gauge enhancement.

David Robinson, group chief executive officer for PD Ports, said: "We are delighted with the support and encouragement our plans have received. Major shipping lines are looking to make direct deep sea calls away from the Greater South East.

They are fed up with delays and congestion and want to land goods closer to their end customers.

The Teesport deep sea container terminal will bring significant new inward investment to the North creating more than 5,500 potential new jobs in an area which desperately needs this economic and social stimulus. It will also save more 70 million unnecessary road miles every year."

All supporting documents and other information about Teesport's plans and the terminal can be viewed through a dedicated Northern Gateway website at www.thenortherngateway.co.uk