The importance of UK trade

But comparability with the six main ports on the European continent is complicated by the inland distribution and transhipments to the Baltic, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

Taking both deep sea and intra-European container trade into account, the UK import volumes are nearly 22% of the total North European trade. Exports account however account for only 13% of the total. These figures exclude empty containers and doubling handling at ports. The container imbalance of full to empty is 1.8 to 1, i.e. nearly twice as many containers arrive full against those leaving.

On a monthly basis, if one takes into account the movement of empty containers as well as full, the average number of teu handled is around 400,000. This puts to bed any thought of the UK ports losing out to their Continental competitors by way of transhipment.

The volume of traffic is just too high at nearly 100,000 teu a month to contemplate such an operation. Main line vessel calls are a cheaper option and it is for this reason that both Felixstowe and London Gateway have invested so much money in expanding and modernising, with the former estimated to currently have an annual capacity of 4.6m teu with plans to expand to 6m teu by 2020. The London Gateway’s full build out plan is for 3.5m teu on a 995-acre site.

With other known expansion plans along the UK coast, the country will be well positioned for increased container flows going forward beyond 2020 and the population centres in southern England will be well placed to enjoy the benefits of these developments.