Could Liverpool be cruising for a bruising? (From Daily Echo)

News Review RSS Feed

Could Liverpool be cruising for a bruising?

12:00pm Sunday 3rd April 2011 in News Review

Could Liverpool be cruising for a bruising?

Southampton has been my home for all 60 years of my life, and like so many other local people I have enormous pride in the city’s unique heritage, which will always be inextricably linked with ships and seafarers.

The recent spat between my home city and Liverpool, over the northerners’ use of many millions of pounds of “state aid’’ to back plans to become a turnaround port for cruise ships, has been particularly galling.

To make matters worse it now seems likely Southampton’s rival will get its way, but only after the Minister of Shipping appears to have caved in and let Liverpool off paying back the full £21m it was originally handed to build a waterfront berth.

This cannot be fair and I have great difficulty in understanding the claim by Southampton City Council this disappointing outcome is somehow a “victory’’ for us in Hampshire.

It has taken years of hard work, together with the investment of huge sums of private money, to make Southampton what it is today. Now Liverpool, for decades a comparative backwater as far as the international cruising industry was concerned, wants to greedily piggy-back on our hard-earned success.

Southampton can rightly claim to have been a major contributor in building up the UK’s extremely healthy cruising industry to the dizzy heights it now enjoys. Liverpool, whose heyday as a centre for passenger liners remains in the past, cannot make any such claim.

I don’t think for one minute the northern port has the ability, facilities and expertise to make any sizeable dent in our city’s cruise trade, but that is not the point.

Government permission should have only been granted if Liverpool stumped-up every penny of its free handout. Instead its looks as if the pay-back is only going to be a fraction of the original amount and then handed over in dribs and drabs.

This is no victory for Southampton. Fiscal rules should be adhered to, and, whatever way you look at it, Liver-pool, now anticipating a nod of approval from the Government, has twisted and turned these regulations for its own ends.

Perhaps Liverpool will attract some cruise ships, although these are likely to be operated by only smaller companies, but it is going to be a hard, uphill task to tempt the major lines away from Southampton.

This is not complacency, but hard facts.

Southampton has four, soon to be five, purpose-built passenger terminals, capable of handling thousands of passengers in a day.

Liverpool has one small terminal on a floating pontoon.

Southampton can easily accommodate large numbers of trucks bringing stores and supplies on the dockside, right next to the ships.

Liverpool, at present, cannot.

Southampton has a highly skilled workforce, which knows, and understands, the complexities of handling the biggest cruise ships in the world.

Liverpool does not.

Southampton expects to see more than one million cruise passengers use the port in 2011.

Liverpool has no such expectations.

A number of ships do already visit Liverpool, mostly for passengers to take shore excursions, and it has to be said, the city’s waterfront, with its “Three Graces’’ and Liver Bird, is a remarkable backdrop for a port-of-call during a voyage.

Southampton, on the other hand, cannot boast of such imposing buildings, although the view would be greatly improved if the charred remains of the old Royal Pier were cleaned up, but that is another story.

Healthy competition keeps everybody on their toes, and a monopoly in any business is bad for all concerned, but all the players need equal opportunities.

Obviously, no ship will ever set sail on a “level playing field’’, but this is what should have happened in this tussle between north and south.

Comments(25)

saints4eva12 says...
12:37pm Sun 3 Apr 11

the northerns proberly paid the gov to get there own way SOUTHAMPTON will always be the first and last stop for passengers end of story
sw quite app soft talk