14


Issue 6 2011


Big plans for Calais W


ork is expected to start next year on a giant new logistics


hub at the port of Calais. Described by its promoters as one of the first direct gateways for distribution between the UK and continental Europe, Calais Premier, is claimed as the biggest logistics project in northern France, with a total surface area of 160 hectares. The site is the Turquerie industrial zone, along the Calais-Dunkirk railway line and is strategically placed between Calais Port and the Channel Tunnel. The local urban authority,


Cap Calaisis, has chosen the Lyon property development company DCB International for the construction work with the first, 50 hectare, phase of the project expected to start in 2012 and due for completion by 2013/14. This first site will be dedicated to logistics activities and transport services, and will have 220,000sq m of logistics warehouses, 50,000sq m of industrial parks, and 11,000sq


Calais Premier will offer 160 hecteres of logistics space at a transport crossroads


m of other commercial property. Cap Calaisis is planning to invest €2m (£1.8m) on a railway junction at the site as well as modernising the whole Calais-Dunkirk railway


Caudard-Breille said that Calais


Premier could satisfy pent-up demand for logistics space in many parts of north-west Europe, including the UK. “It is almost


line. In addition, the Calais 2015 Port Project, worth £ 350 million (Euros 400million), will extend the port to twice its current size. Speaking at the official launch


of the Calais Premier project, DCB International managing director Didier Caudard-Breille said that the site would, uniquely, offer 160 hectares with a single landlord. Furthermore, the site would be at a transport crossroads, not only between the UK and the Continent but stretching as far afield as Moscow. Price could be a major


attraction for companies, he told the conference: “UK and Belgian property prices are much higher than here in Calais.” The site has been designed as


a ‘green grid’ with a large amount of landscaping and the buildings have been designed to be as energy and logistically efficient as possible. Buildings will be offered in units of 2,000sq m up to 32,000sq m.


impossible to find large amounts of logistics property in London, for example,” he explained. UK companies could be persuaded to “redeploy resources” in Calais, and meetings had already taken place with leading logistics property investors in the UK. He added that he did not see the proposed London Gateway port and logistics development in East London as a major competitor to Calais Premier. “I think we can work together - this is a drastically different project.” Pricing of space in the Calais scheme would be half, possibly a third of London levels, he said. Initial rents could be around €42-48 per sq m, he said. The Calais Premier project has been welcomed by other local authorities in the region, despite the fact that they have their own ports to promote. (In fact, several of the local chambers of commerce have recently merged.) Maryange


Landry, project manager at Boulogne-sur-Mer said: “I think it’s a good thing as we have many people seeking employment in the Calais area, and it could be good for traffic through the port of Boulogne.” The latter recently completed a new terminal but currently has no operator following the withdrawal of a short-lived LD Lines service from Dover. Boulogne in fact pioneered the


development of Channel Port logistics facilities, receiving mainly white goods railed from Italy and Eastern Europe for transhipment onto road transport for delivery to UK markets in the 1970s and 1980s. The terminal still exists and handles some traffic but is not actively recruiting new tenants because its buildings are not up to modern standards. “We would like to bring it up to standard, but that will cost money which is hard to find at the moment,” said Landry.


Doing the Leipzig shuffle T


he Calais terminal developers have also signed an agreement


with a Leipzig-based technology company,


CargoBeamer, that


promises to revolutionise rail- road transfers of ‘piggyback’ (trailer on flatcar) traffic. Cargobeamer director Imad


Jenayeh explained that special platforms mounted on rail wagons would effectively ‘shuffle’ an entire trainload of trailers to be moved from rail to road in 15 minutes,


eliminating the long


waits for trailers to be liſted off rail wagons that are a feature of


existing terminals. Moreover, the trailers would not have to be specially strengthened – and their payload slightly reduced - as is the case with existing piggyback operation. The system would allow Continental-standard 4m high trailers to be carried, or 4.1m if the air suspension is dropped. Cargobeamer currently has


a prototype terminal operating in its home city of Leipzig but is planning to ramp up production of the special moveable platform rail wagons next year. The technology could also be


applied where rail traffic needs to be transferred between trains of different gauges, for example on Russian border or between France and Spain.


and


CargoBeamer’s marketing, sales finance


director Michael


Baier added: “CargoBeamer offers the only fully-automated system for transferring non-craneable semitrailers onto the railway and vice versa. One of our CargoGates can shiſt up to 10 times more trailers to trains than a crane terminal can operate. “We have chosen to base our


facility at Calais Premier as it’s strategically an important location, close to the UK and the extensive European rail network.” Cargobeamer’s goal is to have


75 of their CargoGates in Europe, creating a network of freight centres connecting all European cities, from Glasgow in the west to Moscow and Istanbul in the east.


///NEWS Port plans to build


big – and break into box market


T


he port of Calais is about to start work on a plan to double the


size of the existing harbour and to diversify into new trades including containers and trade cars. The port, owned by the local authority – Nord Pas de Calais – is putting the finishing touches to a €400m project to build a new outer wall and dredge a new harbour basin to a depth of 6 metres, although the harbour entrance will be dredged to 13m. Dredged material will then be used to reclaim around 100 hectares of new land. While P&O’s new generation


ferries are able to use recently- enlarged berths 8 & 9 (and no. 7 berth is also being reinforced to cope with the new ships), the port authority is convinced that future expansion and any further increase in ferry size will necessitate the creation of a brand new port area, said Patrick Fourgeaud, director general of CCI Cote d’Opale, which operates the port on a 50-year concession signed back in 1975.


currently has trouble coping at times of peak freight demand. Queues of trucks are commonplace on the motorways approaching Calais, especially towards the weekend. However, although the expansion


plan has been dubbed Calais 2015, it was possible that the first berths would not be operational until slightly after that date – perhaps 2017. A port of Calais spokesman said that the public enquiry should be completed by 2012 and, following a tender process, construction should start in 2014 with completion expected around 2017. The port could also break into the


short-sea container market for the first time – part of the new terminal area could be developed to handle boxes rather than ro ro, if market conditions dictate, added a port of Calais spokesman. Total container capacity could be around 2 million boxes a year. With a depth of around 6 metres, Calais’ niche would clearly be the short-sea not the deepsea market


Calais believes that ferries could


increase to a maximum of about 240m long and 35m beam (P&O’s new Spirit class vessels are 213m long) before they reach the limits of what can be handled within a reasonable port turnaround. “It would


actually be more


expensive to build in the existing space than in the new area,” he said in an interview with FBJ. Irrespective of what was happening on the other side of the Channel – where the Port of Dover’s expansion plans have been snarled up in a privatisation scheme which is currently under review – Calais would need to continue its expansion, he said. Nor would the uncertainty surrounding the future of Dover-Calais operator SeaFrance be allowed to hold the plans up. “We really need this new basin,”


he said. It would create space for up to five or six new berths and help relieve pressure on a port that


– although the nearby port of Dunkirk could cater for the latter with its plans to develop a deepwater terminal. The plans for Calais also include a


road viaduct linking the new area to the existing terminal, rail sidings and a new entrance further away from the built-up area. Initially this would be used for freight only, though tourist car traffic might be moved there at a later stage. A third strand of Calais’ expansion


strategy would be trade cars. This has already started to develop on a limited scale - Peugeot-Citroen cars are railed into a new terminal in the port area where they are transferred onto Suardiaz car carrying vessels for transfer to Sheerness and Killingholm – apparently, high storage costs in the UK make this a more viable option than railing or shipping direct to the UK as cars can be stored cheaply in Calais until called forward.


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