Felixstowe will be seeing double
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THE PORT of Felixstowe provides employment for 1200. people within its area of more than 300 acres, and by this time next year it is planned that the port's container handling capacity will be double that of 1979. And in that year it went up by a fifth to 224,291 compared with the previous year. Total tonnage of goods amounted to 5,497,537 — up by 12 per cent.
The Port of Felixstowe is owned by European Ferries, and it is the largest private enterprise port in the United Kingdom.
Gordon Parker, chairman of a grain merchants company, who was known as the founder of the modern port, died in Norwich in July aged 88. When he bought the port in 1951 it was silted up. It was sold to European Ferries in 1976.
It was at Felixstowe that the first container terminal in England became operational more than ten years ago.
Felixstowe's success story has been helped by the wide combination of roll-on/roll-off, container and general cargo services which means the port can handle virtually every aspect of import and export trade, with cargo ranging from machinery and foodstuffs to timber and chemicals.
Passenger growth through the port has also been dramatic since Townsend Thoresen — a sister company in the European Ferries Group — launched its ferry service to Zeebrugge in Belgium in 1974. While Tor Line serves Sweden the Polish Baltic Line operates to Swinoujscie in Poland via Copenhagen.
A private warehousing complex adjacent to the port provides well over 1m cu ft of cold storage, an inland clearance de
pot and more than 11/2m sqft of warehouse space.
The port is also a railway company in its own right with its own railway linking transit sheds, warehouses, and the container terminal to the main national rail network.
A £27m expansion scheme for the port was announced in January. It is anticipated that it will be possible for the first deep-draft vessel to be alongside and working by late November 1980. Container handling capacity at the port will be increased to a massive 750,000 TEUs per year.
In 1979 more than 220,000 boxes (over 350,000 TEUs) were handled and already the effect of a (.3.2m Transtainer expansion scheme looks set to make '1980 another record year for container handling.
Felixstowe's lift-on/lift-off container capacity will be dramatically increased to seven ship-to-shore cranes backed up by 16 rubber-tyred Transtainer gantry cranes, maintaining the port's reputation of using the most modern cargo handling equipment available.
In line with the port's developments, Harwich Harbour Conservancy Board is to dredge the main navigation channel to a depth of 30ft MLWS (9.2m), allowing deeper draft vessels to move on and off berth at all states of the tide.
Both terminals will be equipped with the latest containerhandling equipment including rail-mounted quayside cranes, purpose-built tractor/trailer units and forklift trucks. Warehousing facilities will be provided for groupage and Customs inspection.
A Freightliner facility — the second at the port — will be built to the rear of the two terminals.