UK ports ongoing and future major development projects

A shift in demand for sector services across UK ports, and an over capacity in the UK market, is changing the trading landscape and the new developments and regeneration happening at each port.

Our Ports Development Conference heard about the ongoing major projects and future plans – including the biggest port project currently in the pipeline at Aberdeen Harbour. Aberdeen’s port has become the hub for the north east coast of Scotland’s booming offshore wind industry. [emaillocker id=”71749″]

The £350m project, which will create Scotland’s largest port facility is 70 per cent built and will be complete by the end of this year, said Chief Executive Michelle Handforth. By creating more than 1400m of new quays in Nigg Bay to the south of the existing harbour, the port’s total berthage area will increase to 7.3ha.

The new harbour will be able to handle vessels up to 300 m long, double the length that can be accommodated in the existing harbour. And depths of up to 10.5m will enable the new harbour to operate round the clock, unconstrained by the weather or tides. The new development will create 125,000 sq m of quayside lay down area.

At the opposite end of the UK, the conference heard how the Port of Dover is undertaking its own £200m major expansion. The UK’s busiest port is redeveloping its Western Docks, where the cross-Channel hovercraft docked until it ceased operations in 2005.

The footprint of the hovercraft port is being reclaimed to create two new berths, 300m and 250m long respectively. Both will include new cargo terminals, including a refrigerated food storage facility. In addition, a new navigation channel is being cut into the walls of the listed Wellington dock, enabling it to be opened up to become a marina.

When complete the western docks revival project will create more than 30 acres of new operational land, which is designed to act as a “catalyst” for future public realm development and landscaping around the marina, said Dover’s Herrod. The first two stages of the project should be complete by June, he said.

The redevelopment of the western docks also provides opportunity to replace and improve the eastern docks on the other side of the port.

DP World’s Estate Manager Nick Orbell said that Tilbury, historically the Thames Estuary’s major port, had failed to get its act together during the recent container development boom.

However, Stuart Wallace, Chief Operating Officer of its owner Forth Ports, said the company is putting this right with a project to extend the port with a new Ro-Ro (roll on roll off) facility, construction and aggregate materials terminal and deep-water jetty.

Construction on the project commenced in March 2019 and is scheduled to be operating in the second quarter of next year.

The cruise business is one of the key drivers behind the expansion of the Port of Tyne, which was outlined by its Marine Harbour Master Steven Clapperton. The 60 cruise vessels, which called into the port in 2019, added £55m of GVA to the north east economy, supporting 1,800 jobs.

And the port is keen to accommodate the increasingly large ships being operated by the industry, he said: “Vessel size is only going in one direction, so we have to expand our offering.”

To accommodate the extra passengers that it will be able to handle following its expansion, the port is bringing forward a new international passenger terminal. This will offer an airport style experience where passengers will be able to drop off their bags, Clapperton said: “We need more space so that passenger flows are controlled more smoothly.”

The port is also expanding its Northumbrian Quay to accommodate anticipated growth in container traffic, he said: “The present container terminal is getting congested. A relatively modest investment will provide us with about a 40 per cent increase in storage.”

The port also boasts two enterprise zones. One covers the seven-ha former McNulty site close to the harbour. The site immediately adjacent to the deep-water channel, with wharves up to 13 m deep that can support the new generation of offshore renewable energy vessels. [/emaillocker]