Costing £300 million, and promising 5,000 new jobs at the Port and in the supply chain, a brand new in-river container port known as Liverpool 2 is due to be built by 2015, with jobs coming on-stream as soon as the licences are approved. The new facility will add a further half-a-million containers (TEUs) annually to the Port of Liverpool, taking its capacity toward two million TEUs in all.
These are exciting times for the Port, and Managing Director Gary Hodgson sees the formal consultation period between now and the MMO’s decision in December as critically important. He said: “The three licences cover navigation issues in the river during the construction of the new Port plus our plans for managing the material we dredge and environmental considerations. We have taken great care to anticipate potential objections but we operate in an extremely competitive marketplace and it is not unknown for rivals to raise objections at the eleventh hour, causing applicants extra cost and delay. If that happens we want to ensure we have the backing of our local community and influential business figures and politicians. So much is at stake and I’d like this to be a real cause celebre.”
He added: “Government is crying out for private business to invest in new infrastructure to kick-start the economy and boost international trade and there are few better examples in the UK than this development”
To raise the profile of Liverpool 2, the Port is taking the message to the heart of Government with an exhibition stand at the recent Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham and a determined campaign to inform MPs and MEPs of all parties about its investment programme. Group Business Development Director Dennis Henderson led a team of senior managers at Birmingham and was delighted with the results. He said: “Our main aim was to meet new Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, which we did on several occasions. He accepted an invitation to come and see the new development first hand and we’ll be following that up urgently. However, we also spoke to several other influential players, including Iain Duncan Smith, William Hague (in main picture), Chris Grayling and Phillip Hammond and they all expressed real interest in our proposals.”
Gary Hodgson added: “The MMO consultation ends on 5th November and assuming we get no serious delays, we expect to get the formal go ahead early in December. That means we’ll see activity and new employment on site from the start of next year, with a completion date of 2015 very much in our sights.”