Hardly surprisingly, the finger was pointed fairly and squarely at environmental planning laws as the major factor behind extended planning processes – 15 years in the case of Maasvlakte II, for instance, and five to six years in the case of the London Gateway project which has only recently obtained the green light from the UK Government.

There were also concerns raised  regarding the climate for UK port investors and specifically criticism of the UK’s “let the market decide approach” to delivering new capacity. 

The number of schemes now approved or in the final stage of approval will, if all delivered in the same timeframe, introduce a wave of new capacity that will shift the position of UK containerports from one extreme to the other, ie not enough capacity to too much.This, in turn, raises the spectre of certain UK port operators not being  prepared to take the commercial risk attached to this – and thus throwing the development pendulum back the other way, ie creating a real danger of a sustained shortfall in capacity over the near to medium term. Out of all this,  came the clear conference view that the current situation is not good enough or, to put it in practical speak, it is a mess.

There were nevertheless some kind words for the port industry – the fact that it has raised its game significantly in the face of adversity was noted and that it continues to try to innovate to reduce the scale of the problems.

Bottom line, though, there was widespread recognition that if system meltdown is to be avoided then planning processes must be streamlined – without this it is just a matter of time!

MIKE MUNDY