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Issue 3 2019 - Freight Business Journal


up to 5,500teu. “This was a long-


term investment, and it’s our hope that we will soon be adding more regular services.” A Far East service would


complete the line up; Liverpool already has strong links to North America the Mediterranean and elsewhere. There is a groundswell of


opinion in favour of Liverpool, she believes. “Cargo owners are becoming more specific about where they want their containers to be and how quickly they can be then be transported to their ultimate destination.” Peel Ports started a ‘Cargo


200’ campaign to get 200 major shippers to commit to using the port and in the event over 250 eventually signed up. If anything, the pressures on


inland transport costs that have made Liverpool a more attractive port than southern gateways have increased, particularly haulage costs, Booth adds. Something else that has helped


boost Liverpool’s box business is the new rail link to Scotland. Since launching in August 2018 the rail service has resulted in a significant reduction in HGV movements around Seaforth and saved around


service for other industry sectors, such as construction as developers continue to rebuild Manchester city centre. Mayor Andy Burnham is also keen to get as much freight traffic off Manchester’s crowded roads as possible. Peel Ports in fact is a network


of interconnected shipping and logistics operations. It also has major operations in Clydeport, the Medway and, more locally, Heysham, which has lately been supplementing its traditional staple of Irish Sea ro ro traffic with grain and wind turbine business. Business at Liverpool itself is


also pretty brisk, with traffic up slightly on last year at around 32 million tonnes, a commendable achievement considering that these are not the easiest of times for customers with looming Brexit and future economic growth uncertain. One secret of the port’s success


products, has just announced that it will invest in a £17m new custom- built warehouse in Liverpool. Jenkins, which has been a tenant at the Port of Liverpool for 10 years has reached an agreement on managed services at Liverpool to secure over 500,000 sq ſt of warehouse space, 300,000 sq ſt of which is new investment in a bespoke state-of-the-art paper and pulp. Liverpool is also one of the


few major UK ports that still has land readily available for development. There are plots within the port area classified as permitted development, which greatly speeds up and simplifies the development process, points out Flanagan. The port is currently working on a couple of bulk liquid storage developments. Another, New Britain Oils, has invested in facilities that will allow it to carry out its own blending operations. Birkenhead, on the other side of


the Mersey, should not be forgotten. As well as the Twelve Quays ferry terminal, it handles regular dry and liquid bulk, and is particularly suited to shipments needing rapid access to Cheshire and the south. To cater for future growth,


500 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the process. Over 2,500 import containers


have already travelled from Liverpool to Mossend terminal in Glasgow using the service, giving Scottish exporters a new route to international markets, returning to the Mersey with exports including food and drink destined for direct deep-sea routes from Liverpool. And, of course, Liverpool is


virtually unique among UK ports in having a regular inland waterway link. The regular container service along the Manchester Ship Canal to points in Cheshire and the city of Manchester has been expanded and provides a very cost-effective means of reaching a market of several million people. Container traffic on the Canal has


gone from 5,000teu to 25,000teu since 2012. The Canal not only lends itself to container traffic, but also provides an inland water


is its diversity, says Peel Ports’ head of commercial for the Mersey, Ben Flanagan. With containers, ro ro, trade cars, solid and liquid bulks, and project cargo, “there’s not much that we don’t do,” he says and it is this factor that has helped Liverpool to become the fourth- busiest port in the country. It’s not just ships that contribute


to Liverpool’s vitality. The port estate hosts a wide range of companies handling diverse cargoes, and there are specialist and multiuser warehouses offering a wide range of value-added services such as devanning of containers, bagging, sorting and grading, to name a few. There is also a highly automated metals terminal, and many of the big names of the global commodity trade are present on the dock estate. Meanwhile Jenkins, a national


logistics provider specialising in paper, pulp and other forest


the port has recently started a campaign to recruit 250 more people, across the full range of its activities. Attracting people to work at


the Port of Liverpool is one thing, but there is also a job to do in promoting not only the port but the wider Liverpool region to business in the UK. The port is an important component of the Brand Liverpool venture, which aims to promote Liverpool and perhaps break down some of the myths that people still hold about the port and the city. One area where Liverpool


and the North generally perhaps lose out is investment in inland transport. Most of the big-ticket spending on railways in particular has been in London and the south lately. Peel has long been pressing for the immediate road access to the Port of Liverpool to be improved, and there are hopes of some progress soon. That said, Liverpool at least does not suffer from having effectively one road in and out as Felixstowe does.


Ben Flanagan, Peel Ports


///NORTH WEST


Straightforward advice on a complex issue


Northwest England based freight consultant Straightforward has seen an upsurge in Brexit-related enquiries from its clients, says director, owner and founder Andy Cliff. Whereas traditionally much of its work was in ocean and air freight, road services to and from Europe have become the big concern lately. The government has sought


to reassure businesses that there will indeed be free and frictionless trade aſter Brexit, but too oſten the advice it gives creates as many questions as it answers. Take the Transitional Simplified Procedures (TSPs) unveiled by HMRC in early February, designed to prevent Dover and the Channel Tunnel from completely gumming up in the event of a No Deal Brexit. The proposals, as they stand


contain “an inherent flaw”, Cliff points out: “Not all traders may have TSP” – which immediately poses the question of how to deal with groupage trailers where, almost inevitably, there will be ‘non-compliant’ consignments. Groupage traffic equates to a possible 110,000 clearances per


day just at Dover, if 25% of trailers had, say 50, shipments each on board and all had to be cleared at port. Given that a high proportion of the Channel Ports’ ro ro traffic will be groupage, there is the very real prospect that these vehicles will end up getting stopped, so the ports will end up being log jammed anyway.


Cliff has even written to


Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mel Stride MP, who appears to be the lead behind TSP, asking for clarification on this vital point but had not, at the time of writing in mid-March, received a reply. Meanwhile, he has been helping


his clients prepare for any Brexit, draſting four questions for users of EU import road services to ask of their transport providers or forwarders. These include how they see


TSP working in practice – including the all-important groupage issue; will the operator prefer to clear shipments at the time off arrival and, if so, how will that work and what will be the charges; how much delay would clearances in


port incur; and if using TSP, would the operator submit simplified declarations on the customer’s behalf and how would that work operationally? So far, though, “the responses


have been very vague and it doesn’t seem like they have a clear plan to deal with imports in a hard Brexit. Bulletins have been released but they are very much ‘wait and see’ or ‘we’re as ready as we can be’ but there is little detail.” Meanwhile, as far as


Straightforward’s ocean and airfreight advisory service is concerned, there have been declines in full container rates on key trade lanes such as Asia- Europe, in line with the slowing economy in Europe. Hapag Lloyd has also introduced some changes to its bunker adjustment factors that would repay careful scrutiny, particularly by shippers of 20’ containers who could pay proportionately more under the new regime. There has been some increase


in transatlantic airfreight rates as capacity tightens. Straightforward itself has had


a record year’s trading in 2018 and has increased its customer portfolio – although it still retains some of its original clients from the days when it was founded, nine years ago.


Wind work liſts Quality Freight’s wings


All-round logistics company Quality Freight Group is seeing a surge in wind turbine and other project work at its 44- acre multimodal site on the Manchester Ship Canal in Ellesmere Port, says commercial manager, Nigel Kent. It has recently completed the


logistics for Enercon’s windfarm project in mid Wales - 16 turbines in all - and is currently in the midst of a 27-turbine scheme. Quality Freight also worked through the recent cold winter to move an 87-piece project for a cement plant. “We’ve had an exceptional


year for heavy liſt and project freight, with a record number of liſts,” Kent explains. Wales and Cheshire are


important markets for Quality Freight Group. The M53 and M56 motorways are only a matter of yards from the port gate and it is the main point of entry for various project contracts. Kent believes that it is in fact the country’s closest port to the UK motorway network, which extends its economic boundary


While sceptics doubted


that freight on the Canal could ever become viable again, the service is now “integral to what we do” and in fact demand can sometimes outstrip available capacity, says Kent. The canal service – known as the ‘Green Highway’ - is now operated by a small coaster vessel in place of


connected and ready to use, capable of taking a 480-metre train. At the time of writing, all


storage facilities are in heavy demand as clients concerned about the effects of Brexit, moved to protect their supply chain by increasing UK stock holding.


by allowing all of its traffic to, in essence, to travel further. Containers are also an


important part of Quality Freight’s traffic. It receives regular weekly calls on the BG Freight service up the canal and handles around 50- 60 containers a week, including cement and ‘bag in box’ units bringing granules for a PET plastic production plant in Wrexham, North Wales.


the original barge, and has the ability to get boxes closer to their final destination. The barge gives a real tangible environmental benefit, with fewer vehicles on the road leading to a reduction in congestion and, ultimately, a more efficient use of resources resulting in cost reduction. At the six-berth Ellesmere Port


site, Quality Freight Group also has its own private rail siding


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