NORTH WEST\\\
No sooner had Esprit Warehousing and Docks moved into its second warehouse at Manchester’s Traff ord Park in November than the place was full, says group director, Graham Dixon. “We are turning work away,” he told FBJ. The reason isn’t hard to deduce.
Around half the new business is Brexit-related, businesses building up stocks ahead of any possible extra duties and supply chain disruption ahead of the UK’s exit from the European Union, originally planned for 29 March. Opening the new site at just the right time was fortuitous, says Dixon. While there had been an increase in enquiries for space during 2018, it was only when the
government lost the fi rst Brexit vote in late January that these solidifi ed into fi rm bookings. All the new business has been
signed on one-year contracts, to ensure that it is no brief fl ash-in- the-pan. One of the two new buildings has been lined out with concrete blocking to make it suitable for bulk storage but the other has been racked out fl oor to ceiling to give space for 4,600 pallets. Dixon says that Esprit was
fortunate to fi nd new premises so close to its existing Traff ord Park site, which is being retained. The market for commercial property in Manchester is pretty tight, and space anywhere in the inner
part of the city is hard to fi nd. Property developers tend to snap up any large sites that do become available. The landlord, he says, “has done an amazing job” in refurbishing and recladding what had been a very tired looking 1970s building – indeed, it is hard to believe that it is not a completely new-build. As it happened, the new site
is two minutes from the existing one, which makes it simple to redeploy staff from one to the other, as necessary. This was a big advantage for Esprit compared with a site in a more outlying area. People unfamiliar with the
inland city of Manchester – and, indeed many residents
– may UK’s loss could be Ireland’s gain
Les Wright, founder and director of supermarket logistics specialist Supply Chain Solution (SCS), has been spending a lot of time on planes lately. Many of the fi rms that supply the big retailers are greatly concerned about the eff ect that Brexit may have on their supply chains, so he has been putting in the air miles setting up partnership arrangements in the key European hubs to ensure that things continue to fl ow as smoothly as possible come Brexit day.
SCS specialises in providing
the more bespoke services for suppliers needing to get their products into the distribution centres of the big supermarkets and retailers. Wright says: “We understand how supermarket systems work, so if our customers have ‘specials’ that they need to make delivery into the Regional Distribution Centres from 4am onward, for example, we have the expertise to do that.” Wright is also a strong advocate
of the Port of Liverpool which he considers can be a much more cost-eff ective port of entry to the UK than the major southern ports. SCS can collect from the quayside in Liverpool much more effi ciently than in other ports, using ‘drop and swap’ haulage to maximise the number of return trips per driver shiſt . He says: “I would encourage
all shippers to use Liverpool - especially with the ongoing problems in ports such as Felixstowe and Southampton. Issues of congestion, backlogging of containers over in European feeder ports and the potential
for further delays due to Brexit, makes the Port of Liverpool an attractive choice.” Whilst
the shipping lines
have not always been willing to off er rates into Liverpool to match those to southern ports, suppliers can still score by speaking to the shipping lines to look at negotiating lower quay rent and demurrage charges. Wright explains: “With the drop and swap option and our 24/7 warehouse, we believe we can off er a more cost eff ective and environmentally friendly haulage operation, as opposed to inland haulage from the southern ports.” SCS encourages shippers to
speak with the shipping lines and see what they are willing to off er. “It’s our objective to become the Northern hub for supermarket logistics. We set our stall out a few years ago, creating legally binding supplier and customer relationship documents which provides the business surety and confi dentiality required to protect the commercial relationships between partners.” SCS has set up Frigoré Ireland
ahead of Brexit, specialising in temperature-controlled and ambient logistics services. This will allow clients to continue to supply their customer base in Europe directly from Ireland, bypassing the UK altogether While the direct Ireland/
Continent option is not always quicker than landbridging via the UK, it would off er a hassle-free route to market without delays caused by administration or customs issues.
and recently joined the IIFA (Irish International Freight Association). Whatever the outcome of the UK’s Brexit negotiations, more business will fl ow from Ireland to the likes of Antwerp and Rotterdam and Frigoré Ireland is well placed to help with these challenges, says Wright. Wright believes that there
could well be a market for the Irish service, whatever the fi nal outcome of the UK’s Brexit negotiations. “We’ll have to see how things
go with Brexit, but we are quietly confi dent that all the hard work done last year in preparation for Brexit will pay dividends in the future,” he concludes.
Issue 3 2019 - Freight Business Journal
puzzle over the ‘Docks’ part of the company’s name, but Esprit’s original site lies on the Manchester Ship Canal, one of the UK’s very few remaining waterways that is still in commercial use. Esprit handles project shipments on its berths and there are some other regular users of bulk shipping, along with the regular container service to and from the port of Liverpool. However, Dixon would like to see more use made of the Canal and it is something that he is constantly pushing for with the Mayor and local government. With all the talk about cutting
pollution and Manchester’s gridlocked roads, increasing use of the Ship Canal should be a no- brainer but it has proved to be a hard task to get things moving. Even waste traffi c, which is something under the control of local councils, still goes mainly by road from Manchester to the disposal site at Runcorn, despite the fact that the latter is astride the Canal and river and an operation could be started with virtually no investment in berths and quays. Barge technology is simple and
relatively cheap, Dixon points out. Its shipping partner, Dutch- based Blue Line has long proved the concept on the Dutch canal system and uses vessels that carry up to 18 waste skips on a fl at deck; all the skip truck has to do is drop its load onto the vessel – no cranes are needed. “People think that waterway
means a lot of extra handling costs, but it’s not the case,” insists Dixon. If more large vessels were plying the canal, it could actually
reduce some costs as they have a natural dredging eff ect. Manchester is reputed to be
second only to Toronto in the entire world in the number of tower cranes on building sites and again, much of the construction material coming into the city could go by water. Dixon suggests a consolidation centre on the edge of the city, perhaps close to the Thelwall motorway viaduct. Use of the canal to bring in a certain amount of material by the canal could be made part of planning conditions, he suggests. His other suggestion is perhaps
more surprising – parcels traffi c. The Bridgewater Canal connects with the Ship Canal and goes right into the heart of the city centre and would be an ideal conduit for deliveries. A connecting barge would operate from a parcels hub at the edge of the urban area to various points in the inner city where it would connect with electric bikes and vans for the fi nal mile (or possibly fi nal few hundred yards) delivery. The concept is completely
workable from a practical point of view and could be quicker and more reliable than road transport, says Dixon. One of the biggest obstacles is that the fi nal delivery would have to be a shared user operation and brand image conscious parcels companies might not be keen on this, though the Gnewt operation in London has seemingly overcome those objections. Another part of Esprit’s
business could also benefi t from the Canal – AD Supplies. ‘AD’ stands for anaerobic digestion
23
and its purpose is to arrange the collection of leſt over food and other organic waste, consolidate it and arrange for transport to specialist plants where it can be turned into energy or fertilizer. Think of all the households, restaurants, shops, gin distilleries even that produce organic material and in most cases send it to landfi ll or fl ush it down the drain. There are in fact AD plants all over the country, says Dixon, but many of them are not currently operating at full capacity, the main problem being the consolidation of myriad small amounts of waste. This though could be solved by a ‘milk round’ collection operation in city centres and other places with a large concentration of waste-producing businesses. And once everything has been
consolidated into a large load, what better way to move it to the digestion plan than by canal? Meanwhile, Esprit continues
to handle large pieces of project freight at its berth. With the redevelopment of Pomona Wharf for housing, it is the last working dock in Manchester and as such is Highways England’s designated closest point to the city centre. This means that any abnormal loads destined for the city centre must travel by water as far as Esprit’s wharf with only the last few miles by road. Peel group, the ultimate
owner of the canal has been very supportive of Esprit’s eff orts to develop commercial traffi c on the Canal – a far cry from the situation a few years ago when there was a serious proposal to fi ll it in and use the land for building.
Frigoré Ireland is an Irish Registered company
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