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Issue 7 2014 - Freight Business Journal


///NEWS


Blow to Manston reopening hopes


Manston Airport has been sold to a regeneration company that plans to develop it for non-aviation use. Trevor


Cartner and Chris


Musgrave, part of the consortium behind Discovery Park, Sandwich, have bought a majority stake for an undisclosed fee. The airport was previously bought by transport magnate Ann Gloag, who co- founded the Stagecoach Group, for £1 last October but it closed in May in the face of continued losses. Manston was a popular hub with full freight operators but had been suffering from a loss of business, reflecting the downturn in that segment of the airfreight market. Chris Musgrave was reported as


saying that the new owners hoped to comprehensively redevelop the whole site as a mixed-use community, in light of the fact that the airport had closed and all the equipment sold. The new owners plan a 20-year £1bn redevelopment to “create more than 4,000 jobs”, far more than were employed at the airport when it was still operating. But Roger Gale, Tory MP for


Thanet North, said that the plan appeared to be “remarkably like


opportunist land-banking” and that it was in the “national and the local interest” for Manston to remain open as an airfield. The BBC reported him as saying:


“If he [Trevor Cartner] wishes to pursue that route alongside airport- related industries then he will have my support but if he wishes to tear up the airfield and smother the land in industrial premises that can and should be located elsewhere in Thanet, or to assist Ms Gloag in the realisation of her plan to create a significant housing development, then I shall oppose his plans.” Paul Carter, leader of Kent


County Council, was more positive, describing the new owners as having a “fantastic track record in taking over large and difficult sites following the demise of earlier uses”. Meanwhile, another airport –


Blackpool – closed on 15 October. It was put up for sale in August by owners Balfour Beatty but failed to find a buyer. Although not a major freight hub - cargo has declined to negligible levels - it does handle regular passenger flights including Jet2, Stobart Air and Citywing.


Happy times are here again says Davies Turner boss


A tightening property market and a shortage of container trucks could be signs that the UK freight forwarding market has turned the corner, says Davies Turner group chairman, Philip Stephenson. “It may be a straw in the wind – haulage is under pressure, which is a sign of a busy economy,” he told FBJ in an interview in early October. He has also noted a marked


tightening in the commercial property market, especially in London, the Midlands and Bristol and the M4 corridor. “Low interest rates and a quickening economy have pushed up freehold prices and rents,” he said. “There aren’t any spare buildings.” However, he pledged that the rising property market would not deter Davies Turner from investing where it needed to in order to serve its customers. The freight business was


meanwhile doing well, although as usual, the growth in imports into the UK was outstripping that for exports. “I think most freight forwarders are going to have a


good autumn,” he said. Davies Turner says it is bringing


forward investment in its main regional freight hubs across the UK and Ireland in the face of growing demand for multimodal freight forwarding, warehousing, distribution and value added services. Earlier this year the company


started operations at its third warehouse in Avonmouth, near Bristol having first installed racking with 11,400 pallet locations and adding a further 70,000 sq ſt with 12.5 m high eaves, again in a secure yard with access control. Now the Bristol hub has doubled this capacity by leasing the building next door with similar dimensions and loading docks. At Cumbernauld, Davies


Turner’s main overland and ocean freight hub in Scotland’s Central Belt, the company has purchased the freehold of its existing premises, plus another 1.5 acres of adjacent developable land, which can be used to increase the size of the existing warehouse when


The Bristol property market is tight but Davies Turner has found room for 11,000 pallets in its new facility


required. Stephenson insisted that the decision to develop the site was not influenced by the Scottish referendum result. At Heathrow, Davies Turner Air


Cargo has built additional office space as well as a new temperature controlled storage facility, geared to handle increasing pharma logistic business. This follows earlier investment in a new scissor liſt, powered loading bed and 5-ton pallet mover at its Heathrow distribution centre for handling skids and ULDs. These recent developments


follow the expansion at the company’s Hams Hall freight hub in the Midlands over the last two years. “Our aim is as ever to offer


customers the complete supply chain management package, together with our global network of consolidation services,” according to Stephenson. “We continue to grow with a mixture of retail and industrial business, exports and re-exports as well as consumer imports. This mix is essential to smooth out the seasonal peaks and troughs.”


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