MPs plead to save £150m port expansion (From Daily Echo)

MPs plead to save £150m Southampton port expansion and safeguard 2,000 jobs

10:08am Wednesday 18th January 2012 in Shipping By Tom Moseley, Parliamentary Correspondent

HAMPSHIRE’S MPs will today make an impassioned plea to cut the red tape threatening a scheme that will create hundreds of new jobs and safeguard thousands more.

A cross-party group of representatives from across the county are due to call on the Government to end the delays holding up a vital £150m expansion project at Southampton Port “before it’s too late”.

The privately-funded scheme is described as essential to the future of the city’s future as a major container port.

It would allow the docks to handle the next generation of supersized container ships, safeguard 800 direct and 1,200 indirect jobs while creating 200 new positions.

But it is under threat after rival port operators lodged a judicial review of the decision to approve the work.

Southampton Itchen MP John Denham has secured a slot in Westminster Hall today to press the Government on the urgent need for the investment.

He has already received crossparty backing from across the county, with Tories Julian Lewis (New Forest East) and Steve Brine (Winchester), Lib Dem Portsmouth South MP Mike Hancock and Southampton Test Labour MP Alan Whitehead among those who have already pledged their support.

A minister will be listening to their points during the hour-anda- half debate on Southampton’s situation and will then have to respond directly to their arguments.

Mr Denham, who said work had to begin in September to avoid heavy delays, accused the Marine Management Organisation of “bureaucratic paralysis” and the Department of the environment, Food and Rural Affairs of “ineffectual complacency”.

The MMO is the public body which issued the required environmental consent to ABP Southampton last February, but then decided not to contest the legal challenge against that decision, which has pushed the project back as the application is reassessed.

Mr Denham said: “This project, if it goes ahead, will create hundreds of new jobs and safeguard over 1,000 more.

“It is not an exaggeration to say this project must go ahead, to secure Southampton’s future as a major container port. Time is running out for the Port of Southampton – the Government needs to act now before it’s too late.”

As reported, Hutchinson Ports, which owns the docks at Felixstowe, lodged a legal challenge of a decision to give the goahead for major works to develop Southampton’s berths 201 and 202 into a new 500m quay wall.

It would restore a fourth berth lost because the increasing length of container ships has meant Southampton’s existing deep-sea container berths, 204 to 207, cannot accommodate four large vessels at the same time.

The MMO did not defend the challenge, agreeing the effects of the project had not been fully examined, including the impacts on traffic in Southampton and beyond, leading to the application having to be studied again.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has already taken an interest in the case, saying the project represented “exactly the sort of private- sector infrastructure investment that the country needs”.

Last week Business Minister Mark Prisk said he supported Southampton’s expansion plans, if done within competition and environmental constraints.