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auliers hit hard by dock unrest
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• Hauliers are being hit hard by the unofficial dock strike, with loads being diverted away from ports covered by the National Dock Labour Scheme.
Many Liverpool haulage firms are following the big shipping firms into Wales. R Barker and Sons has been moving loads to Milford Haven for the past three weeks. Managing director Geoff Barker says: "We are going three hundred miles (450km) out of our way and it is forcing the shipping companies to bear enormous costs. What is dreadful about the situation is when you look at it in the long term. Eventually, shipping firms will be forced to leave trouble spots like Liverpool and move to other docks."
International operator Martintnix is also diverting loads. Operations manager Dave Salter says: "Some goods are being re-routed to Dartford. One day we will have work but the next day we won't have any. The uncertainty is the worst problem — you never know when you are going to be out of work."
Although no dockers are on strike in Southampton, the threat of action hanging over the port has been enough to drive shipping and container companies elsewhere, including along the coast to Portsmouth and Shoreham.
Robert Nunn, director of Harline Transport which operates out of Southampton, says that those firms still bringing goods into the port were moving them out still in containers, rather than risk unloading at the dock.
Harline is having to send drivers to inland clearance de pots to pick up their loads when the containers are unloaded.
All of the main crossChannel ferry operators are reporting increased RO-RO traffic this week, with Sealink exceeding its 1989 predicted 45% growth and P&O running at 7-8% ahead of last year.
Sally Line, which sails from Ramsgate to Dunkirk, has seen a "considerable rise in strike traffic". Most of Sally Line's night-time crossings are now full and 70% of all quayside freight leaves the port within eight hours of arrival. Early daytime crossings still have spare freight capacity. Schiaffino, which also sails out of Ramsgate, says that it has seen "quite an increase since this dock strike nonsense began". The company used to average three or four daily sailings from Ramsgate to Ostend but now regularly sails five times a day.
None of the major RO-RO port authorities will say if they are touting for new business as the situation at the strikeaffected ports worsens.
1:1 The Chemical Industries Association is establishing an information exchange which will keep members informed of all developments if the dispute becomes a full strike.