A giant dredger will begin construction tomorrow of the first deep-sea port in Britain for 25 years, designed to receive the biggest container ships from the Far East. DP World, the port's owner, says that the new wharf on the Thames Estuary will be big enough to berth six of the biggest container ships that have ever sailed. The £1.5 billion project will involve 3.5 million containers being received every year and hoisted on to Britain’s biggest logistics park on the quayside.
The 23 million cubic metres of sand and silt sucked from the bed of the Thames Estuary over the next three years will be deposited on Essex mudflats and the old Shell Haven refinery as part of a land reclamation project.
The site of the London Gateway project is twice the size of the City and ten miles from the M25. DP World claims that it will remove 2,000 lorries a day from the roads by cutting out a costly link in the supply chain. At present most goods shipped from Asia to Britain’s busiest container port at Felixstowe are taken to warehouses in the West Midlands before secondary journeys to London and other markets.
The project is expected to create 12,000 jobs but the Government has resisted offering public money. The financial difficulties of the company’s parent group, Dubai World, have left some in the shipping industry to wonder whether the project will ever be finished as planned.
The doubts are dismissed, though, by those close to the project. “This is where our nation’s trading heartbeat physically will be,” Simon Moore, the London Gateway chief executive, said. “What we have here is a marine superhighway. As you go higher up the river, it becomes a B-road.”
Laing O’Rourke and Dredging International won the £400 million contract to dredge the estuary's Yantlet Channel and to lay the foundations for the port. The site will be raised by three metres and the wharf will be built on reclaimed land extending up to 600 metres into the estuary. The next generation of ultra-large container ships, which can carry 14,000 containers, are unable to sail any farther up the Thames.
A dual carriageway already connects the brownfield site to the M25 and the company plans to double the existing single track rail connection and create a rail-freight depot to handle up to 60 trains a day.
There has been little opposition to the project in the ten years since it was first considered. The main environmental agencies are on board, with plans to remove endangered species from the site. Road hauliers, the shipping industry and the Government have all said that they are in favour.
“It would be a direct competitor to Felixstowe and in our view that would be healthy, because it would provide shipping lines with greater choice and enable the market to function in a more efficient manner,” said Tim Reardon, shipping policy manager at the Chamber of Shipping.
“It will work fine as long as the cost of operating that centre is viable,” said John Howells, the Road Haulage Association’s Southern and Eastern regional director. “Some of the bigger operators will probably move in to cut down on their distribution costs. It may be too big for the smaller operators who will probably continue to use their existing facilities in the Midlands.”
DP World said that it was in discussions with high street retailers and their suppliers about taking plots in the 9 million square-foot warehouse complex. It has outline planning approval and last week InterGen, which operates a gas-fired power station on the margin of the site, applied to build a 900MW generator. DP World said that it hoped to open the port, subject to a revival in world trade, within ten years.
The 23 million cubic metres of sand and silt sucked from the bed of the Thames Estuary over the next three years will be deposited on Essex mudflats and the old Shell Haven refinery as part of a land reclamation project.
The site of the London Gateway project is twice the size of the City and ten miles from the M25. DP World claims that it will remove 2,000 lorries a day from the roads by cutting out a costly link in the supply chain. At present most goods shipped from Asia to Britain’s busiest container port at Felixstowe are taken to warehouses in the West Midlands before secondary journeys to London and other markets.
The project is expected to create 12,000 jobs but the Government has resisted offering public money. The financial difficulties of the company’s parent group, Dubai World, have left some in the shipping industry to wonder whether the project will ever be finished as planned.
The doubts are dismissed, though, by those close to the project. “This is where our nation’s trading heartbeat physically will be,” Simon Moore, the London Gateway chief executive, said. “What we have here is a marine superhighway. As you go higher up the river, it becomes a B-road.”
Laing O’Rourke and Dredging International won the £400 million contract to dredge the estuary's Yantlet Channel and to lay the foundations for the port. The site will be raised by three metres and the wharf will be built on reclaimed land extending up to 600 metres into the estuary. The next generation of ultra-large container ships, which can carry 14,000 containers, are unable to sail any farther up the Thames.
A dual carriageway already connects the brownfield site to the M25 and the company plans to double the existing single track rail connection and create a rail-freight depot to handle up to 60 trains a day.
There has been little opposition to the project in the ten years since it was first considered. The main environmental agencies are on board, with plans to remove endangered species from the site. Road hauliers, the shipping industry and the Government have all said that they are in favour.
“It would be a direct competitor to Felixstowe and in our view that would be healthy, because it would provide shipping lines with greater choice and enable the market to function in a more efficient manner,” said Tim Reardon, shipping policy manager at the Chamber of Shipping.
“It will work fine as long as the cost of operating that centre is viable,” said John Howells, the Road Haulage Association’s Southern and Eastern regional director. “Some of the bigger operators will probably move in to cut down on their distribution costs. It may be too big for the smaller operators who will probably continue to use their existing facilities in the Midlands.”
DP World said that it was in discussions with high street retailers and their suppliers about taking plots in the 9 million square-foot warehouse complex. It has outline planning approval and last week InterGen, which operates a gas-fired power station on the margin of the site, applied to build a 900MW generator. DP World said that it hoped to open the port, subject to a revival in world trade, within ten years.