container ports
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MINISTER of Transport Mrs. Barbara Castle told the Commons on Wednesday that she has given the go-ahead to container port development on the Clyde and Merseyside.
She has authorized the Clyde Port Authority's Greenock scheme and a start is to be made on a major extension at Seaforth on the Mersey including a considerable container element.
Several questions have still to be settled about the Seaforth project, she said, including the number of container berths. But decisions on these will not delay the start on the scheme's essential features.
She warned MPs that Britain may lose out in the port development race unless decisions are made quickly and red tape cut.
Also in the Commons this week Mrs. Castle said that the experimental double white lines are a failure—and that she has given instructions for them to be removed.
There has been a significant increase—17 per cent in the number of injury accidents on the stretches of road where these lines have been laid.
On Conurbation Transport Authorities, she said that during her discussions with local authorities and public transport officers in the greater Manchester area she found substantial support for the setting up of a transport authority in the conurbation under local authority control.
She was asked by Tory transport spokesman Mr. Peter Walker whether it is her policy to increase the size of the transport fleet of British Railways to a level which will make them independent of private hauliers for the servicing of Freightliner terminals.
She said that the Railway Board's policy, with which she is in full agreement, is to provide sufficient road vehicles to deal with the volume of Freightliner traffic requiring collection and delivery by its own fleet.
Discussing transport technology she said she is to increase the effort devoted to research. An outlined programme of research has been formulated and the Ministry of Technology is co-operating with her department in the arrangements.