2:52pm Monday 13th July 2009
By Gareth Lewis
IT’S the heartbeat of the Solent economy, supporting 77,000 jobs and generating £5.5 billion.
Since the dark days of the 1970s, Southampton docks has become a massive success story, growing to become one of the biggest cruise ports in the world and handling one fifth of the UK’s container traffic.
Despite the global recession, which has hit port business hard, docks bosses are predicting a huge surge in trade over the next 20 years.
There’s just one problem they say – they are running out of room.
As reported by the Daily Echo more than a month ago, port chiefs remain committed to controversial plans for a new container terminal on Dibden Bay.
Now, what amounts to a 130-page argument for the £600m project, ABP’s draft Port of Southampton Masterplan 2009, is to be unveiled to city businesses at the Port City Future’s conference at the Ocean Terminal today.
The research forecasts massive growth across all the three Cs – cars, containers and cruise ships.
By 2020, cruise passenger numbers are expected to more than double from the 2005 level to reach 1.49 million and to reach almost two million by 2030 – a whopping 173 per cent increase.
Container numbers are also forecast to swell from 1.38 million in 2005 to 2.69 million in 2020 and a massive 4.2 million by 2030.
The number of cars crossing the quayside is also expected to climb from 724,000 today to 844,000 by 2030.
If you put it all together, the port handled a total of 44 million tonnes of cargo in 2007. By 2030, that will have soared to 62.6 million tonnes, according to ABP’s calculations.
The shape of the port we know today is likely to change dramatically to cope with this surge in business.
A fifth cruise terminal will be built to handle the latest megaships and the existing terminals expanded and upgraded to handle the unprecedented passenger numbers.
Up to three more multi-deck car compounds are set to spring-up in the Eastern and Western docks to free space from parked cars for other port business.
Finally, and most importantly, port bosses aim to get Dibden Bay up and running after 2021.
The plan for a huge new terminal employing 3,000 people and able to accommodate up to four of the very biggest ships afloat at any one time was famously rejected by a public enquiry in 2004 on environmental grounds.
That decision cost ABP £50m and the company changed strategy to make better use of its existing land in Southampton.
Now, the masterplan predicts they will finally run out of room by 2021 and calls for work to begin on the Dibden plan well ahead of then.
“By 2020, we consider it likely that the intensity of land use in the Eastern and Western docks will have increased to the point where the port will be approaching the practical limits of land use optimisation,”
the Masterplan warns.
“Our demand forecasts indicate that expansion beyond the operational port estate will become necessary between 2021 and 2027.
“As already noted, in terms of a planning time frame, it is clear that the detailed planning, design and specification involved will need to begin well before then.”
Port bosses see Dibden as the only site suitable for expansion, the plan reveals.
“In noting the recent successes of the Port of Southampton, it is important to acknowledge the debt owed to its founders and subsequent owners who left a legacy without which it would not have been possible to meet the huge challenges of the last few decades.
“Legacies, however, do not last forever. Several practical boundaries of the port have already been touched and finite constraints on capacity are well in sight.
“Since the mid-1960s consideration has been given on several occasions to the appropriate location for port expansion, should it be required.
“The common conclusion has been that land at Dibden Bay is not only the most suitable, but also the only option.”
By 2030, the plan envisages Dibden Bay handling between half a million and 800,000 containers, but that would quickly climb up to several million.
The environmental impact of the scheme, likely to be a key battleground in future planning negotiations, is this time central to ABP’s thinking.
“In identifying the Dibden reclaim as the only possible location for port expansion, ABP is fully aware of the nature conservation value of the site and the adjoining foreshore,” the Masterplan states.“Nature conservation is one of many considerations that will have to be borne in mind before it would be possible to begin to assemble a proposal for port development on the Dibden reclaim.
“The demand forecasts indicate that a detailed development proposal is not required for several years.
ABP intends to use this time to engage with key stakeholders.
“Specific consideration will be applied to the design of development proposals to identify the most sustainable way to accommodate the port’s expansion needs.”
Port boss Doug Morrison is determined to press ahead with the expansion plans.
“Our predecessors made far-sighted decisions to grow, consolidate and expand the port.
“The decisions made all those years ago are recognisably the foundation of the port’s contemporary success. For some time ABP has been following the same approach – long term investment to secure the port’s future. We intend to keep doing so.”
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