VOSA still negotiating over UK ports access
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CM COVER STORY
chris.tindatfarbi.co.uk
VOSA SAYS IT IS still in discussions with UK ports to allow it to carry out enforcement activities, six months after its chief executive admitted several ports would not allow the agency in.
Alastair Peoples, VOSA CEO. told MPs in January that four ports had denied VOSA access because of competition issues.They were Caimryan and Stranraer in Scotland, Twelve Quays in Liverpool and Liverpool Port, which later refuted the claim, saying VOSA was carrying out weekly operations on site.
Peoples said the situation could give rise to a perception that commercial advantage was being given to these ports because VOSA was not checking HCiVs there.
But VOSA tells CM it is still unable to carry out its functions at the three remaining ports. A spokesman says: -VOSA is working closely with relevant port association bodies to negotiate an agreement to gain access to those port locations to which VOSA does not currently have permission to work from."
British Ports Association director David Whitehead says the agreement is only weeks away from being ready. -The final stage is that the ports can accept it." he says -There are issues when you start to define the relationship between ports and VOSA; you have to get it right. But it's a memorandum of understanding: it's not a piece of law."