Halcrow's project manager Martin Mannion explained, 'The Halcrow led team will be working towards developing a vision for the Port of Dover and in particular, an outline of the Port's development over the next 30 years.

This involves forecasting the demand patterns of the future and deciding on the strategic direction needed to achieve the long-term goals. This project is critical in ensuring that Dover can meet the expected growth in traffic.'

During the first phase of the project, the team will be consulting port users, local and national authorities, industry experts and the community.

This will help in producing the strategic direction of the port, the results of which will be published in July.

Phase two of the commission will involve optimising the existing harbour to help meet the conclusions of phase one.

Subsequent phases will look at how the port could be expanded beyond the existing boundaries.

Dover is Europe's busiest ro-ro freight and passenger ferry port and operates two dedicated cruise liner terminals, a deep-sea cargo terminal specialising in fresh produce imports, and a 400 berth marina. Thirty years ago the ferry terminal celebrated processing one million tourist cars along with 5.7 million passengers and 200,000 lorries.

By last year those figures had risen to 2.6 million tourist cars, 16.4 million passengers and 1.8 million lorries.

In another commission, Halcrow is responsible for the detailed design of two new ferry berths at the port. When commissioned in 2004, these will make a significant contribution to the port's capacity.

MJ Information No: 18202