22


Issue 8 2018 - Freight Business Journal


///FRANCE & CHANNEL PORTS Dover’s grand design takes shape


Work on Dover’s new general cargo berths is moving ahead and the contractors should hand the facility to the port in February 2019 for fi tting out. At the time of writing in mid-


November, the structure of the new refrigerated cargo terminal was largely complete and work was well advanced in two new berths, of 251 metres and 300m length respectively, on a space that was once occupied by the hovercraſt berth. All told, the expansion scheme will give the port fi ve berths for general cargo and cruise vessels, says business development manager, Nick Dixon. The new facilities should be ready to handle the fi rst ships in about


May or June. He adds: “There has been a lot of


interest for cargo owners and ship operators.” The new development will


allow the existing general cargo terminal to be closed, buildings demolished and the much-needed space handed over to the port’s busy ro ro operation. It could create space for around 250 trailers, or two complete ferryloads of trucks. Dixon enthuses: “We will go


from a general cargo operation that has, at best, seven loading bays, to one with 20 bays. It will mean that we can load almost from ship to road trailer and while we have always been very quick at handling perishable fruit traffi c, we will


become even sharper.” The new shed will have space around 4,500 pallets and,


for


while originally conceived as a 90 x 90 metre facility it has now been expanded to 90 x 100m by extending the front so that a complete trailer load can be held behind the loading bays. In container terms, whereas the old terminal had space for only 3-400 units - bursting at the seams – the new one will hold 2,000 units comfortably. A vehicle booking system has


been introduced at the existing terminal and will carried over to the new operation, further speeding up operations. The plan, adds Dixon, is for the


VIIA adds Turin-Calais route


French Railways’ VIIA arm has added a second rail motorway service into Calais, from Turin. The new route, which runs twice a day from the Italian city’s Orbassano terminal, complements the existing twice-daily route from Le Boulou on the French-Spanish border, to Calais, inaugurated in March 2016. Transit time is 18 hours. The service is operated by Fret


SNCF and the Italian state rail company’s Mercitalia subsidiary. Trailers from the service can be


moved by port tractors to Calais’ ferry berths for unaccompanied transport to Dover or can be picked up by road-going tractors


for accompanied operation on the ferries or the Channel Tunnel. Like the existing Spanish service,


the new Turin route uses a special design of rail wagon with pivoting platforms that allow the use of standard road trailers. Retractable pockets on the wagons allow the trailer wheels to be recessed, keeping standard height European trailers within the rail loading


gauge. Other existing road-rail services


that use cranes to liſt trailers on and off trains require the use of specialised Huckepack reinforced road trailers. VIIA also says that the system


gives much faster loading and unloading than other methods and allows bookings for the service to be made up to one hour before


new terminal to hold a complete truckload of fruit pallets – 24 in all – ready to be loaded direct onto the incoming vehicle. Large though the new shed is compared with the old one, its effi ciency depends entirely on keeping things moving through it – and which the perishable nature of the cargo dictates anyway. It will also be able to load


consignments arriving in Dover onto trucks which will then take the next available ferry from the ro ro port and get them to markets in mainland Europe far quicker than they could be remaining on the incoming vessel and awaiting the next port call on the Continent, Dixon points out. Dover can also get perishables onto the shop shelves quicker than ports such as Tilbury or London Gateway, Dixon argues.


departure. It suggests that road hauliers


using the services can cut their costs by 15% compared with over- the-road operation. It also allows them to avoid France’s weekend lorry ban and other restrictions on truck operation. VIIA said the new service, which


can carry up to 40 trailers on each train, would help reduce road congestion as well as reducing CO2 emissions and other pollutants by up to 80% compared with over-the-road operation. The Le Boulou-Calais route carried 6,500 trailers in 2017. However, this fi gure is dwarfed by the 64,700 units on VIIA’s service from Le Boulou to Bettembourg in Luxembourg, established in 2017.


Most of it is cleared as soon as it hits the quayside in Dover. Fruit traffi c in Dover is already


increasing, in advance of the opening of the new facilities, says Dixon. The arrival of Geest Line’s Caribbean service from


Portsmouth has brought export traffi c of machinery and other goods back to the region and to Dover (the other existing service operated by Seatrade is mainly focused on fruit imports, reloading mainly on the Continent.)


John Shirley counts the cost of Brexit


Dover-based forwarder John Shirley – who owns and operates a company of the same name – has become the media’s ‘go to’ spokesman for all things Brexit. He has made numerous TV and radio appearances, warning of the consequences of the country crashing out of the Union without a proper agreement in place, and has spoken at the behest of Business for a People’s Vote, a group which is campaigning for the public would get the fi nal say over whether to quit the EU when the deal is fi nally published. Shirley says that even aſt er


months and years of debate, “it’s astonishing how many people don’t know about the nitty- gritty of business”. Politicians’ suggestions that the thousands of trucks pouring off the ferries in Dover or at the Channel Tunnel could somehow be dealt with by a pre-clearance system “like they have in Rotterdam” illustrates how limited a grasp of the workings of international trade people have, including many who should know better. He himself has done a


rough calculation based on an average fi gure of seven separate consignments arriving in Dover and Folkestone on each trailer (groupage and full-load) which, spread over 10,000 trucks a day, 365 days a year and with a £100 cost for each customs clearance, could cost consumers an extra £2.5 billion a year. Add in other factors such as delays and the cost could be double, Shirley suggests. And don’t even begin to think the cost of processing a trailer load of garments subject to Inward or Outward Processing Relief, typically a full day’s work for a customs clerk. Another John Shirley


calculation suggests that the cost of trailer demurrage in the event of post-Brexit hold-ups could reach £260 million by day 14. There is also the question of


haulage permits to consider, particularly situations like a Serbian truck loading in Hungary for the UK, for example.


1/2 Page Adverts.indd 2 23/05/2017 16:25 In one of the TV programmes


in which John Shirley appeared, a Serbian driver interviewed suggested that, if things got too diffi cult, his boss would most likely give up running to the UK. There is a severe driver and truck shortage in Europe and operators can pick and choose where they go. And if fewer trucks are coming into the UK, how will we get our exports out? Even if there was to be a revival in UK international truck driving, it would take years for people to be trained and acquire licences. There are reportedly only 200


customs clerks leſt in east Kent and, going the other way, has the eff ect of a deluge of UK trucks wanting to clear into the EU at Calais been considered? Doom and gloom aside, John


Shirley has though been doing well as a business, although it is hard to get away from customs issues. The forwarder does a brisk trade in moving portable chalet-type accommodation to music festivals and the like in Europe including a consignment of half a dozen to Switzerland. Five of them got across the Swiss border without problems but a sixth was not so lucky – Swiss Customs demanded a €6,000 deposit which had to be quickly found and paid by credit cards. Asked why the other fi ve units had not been treated similarly, the customs offi cer said: “They probably got lucky.” Such is the capriciousness of customs, even in a well-ordered country like Switzerland. Another example: At the time


of writing, schools across the UK were gearing up for what John Shirley calls “the shoebox season” in which kids put together parcels of toys, clothes and other goodies to be sent to orphanages and the like in countries such as the former Yugoslavia. Customs in one part of Bosnia are liable to refuse truckloads of individual parcels entry unless each is inventorised; in another, they are waved straight through without any problems.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28