Dredging kicks off Liverpool2 development
Work on Liverpool2, a new terminal at the UK port, has begun with more than a million cubic metres of material now to be moved by dredgers to clear a deepwater channel at the Port of Liverpool.
The dredging work, funded by a £35m UK Government Regional Growth Fund grant, will create a 16.5 metre deep berthing pocket to secure access to the developing Liverpool2 project.
This funding was awarded to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in May.
The Port of Liverpool handles more than 33 million tonnes of cargo every year, and is the UK’s leading west coast port.
When completed in 2015, the Port’s deepwater container terminal will accommodate two of the new breed of post-Panamax container ships at one time, and attract some of the world’s largest container vessels to a centrally located UK distribution hub which boasts a population of 35 million consumers within a radius of 150 miles.
Peel Ports’ £300 million investment will enable container ships from around the world to connect directly with the northern half of the UK and Ireland, and so serve an annual market estimated at around four million TEU.
The new Liverpool2 terminal is expected to create around 5,000 jobs in the region’s maritime community, and is anticipated to be open for business in 2015. The maritime sector employs 28,000 people across 1,700 businesses in the Liverpool City Region, and contributes £2.6bn to the area’s annual economic output ,15% of the total economic output for the region. Peel Ports runs the Port of Liverpool and the linked Manchester Ship Canal.
Half of the £300 million overall construction cost for Liverpool2 has been drawn from a 20 year European Investment Bank (EIB) loan.
Liverpool2 is the key project in the Mersey Ports Master Plan, the 20 year vision for growth and future developments at the Port of Liverpool and on the Manchester Ship Canal launched by Peel Ports last year.
Liverpool2 will connect directly to a number of port centric logistics hubs along the Manchester Ship Canal via barge, resulting in the development of the UK’s first ‘green logistics hub’, which will reduce costs, congestion and carbon footprint for businesses located in the North West of England, serving the north of the UK.
The construction programme comprises a new 854m quay wall, the in-filling of the newly created land mass, the dredging of a new 16.5m deep berthing pocket adjacent to the quay wall, the installation of ship to shore quay cranes and modern cantilever rail mounted gantry cranes (CRMGs) and associated supporting infrastructure works.
The quay wall contractor will be named in the near future, and further packages of work will be advertised, including design and consultancy services. The main contractor is infrastructure group Lend Lease.
