WORK is set to begin on a £30m project to bring the biggest container ships in the world to Southampton.

More than three million cubic metres of clay, sand and gravel will be removed from the port channel in a major dredge operation by Hampshire firm Boskalis Westminster.

The Fareham-based company has been appointed by port owners Associated British Ports (ABP) to carry out the project, which will begin in the next few weeks and be completed within a year.

The dredging work will deepen large sections of the 40km approach channel to the port, and improve the safety of ships’ navigation and the ability of vessels to pass each other.

It will also increase the marine tidal access window for larger ships and make it open to “super-containers”, largely travelling from the Far East.

The port’s main navigational channel will be deepened and widened in some parts, with the waste material removed from the channel being taken to a licensed deposit ground in the English Channel, south of the Isle of Wight.

It forms part of a wider project to improve facilities at the port, which is already the UK’s best-performing container terminal and the most productive port in Europe.

That project will see four enormous container cranes, worth £28m, installed on a new 500m quay.

That work is due for completion by April, while the dredge project is expected to be completed within a year.