'Not a lot of slack' at Europe's top ro-ro port
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The ancient port of Dover is expanding to cope with ever-growing traffic volumes, as John Durant found out when he spoke to terminal manager Peter Cuttell
THE BIGGEST tranport focus in the United Kingdom is in South East England — its Dover, an ancient port that has grown in importance in the past few years with the development of roll-on/roll-off services.
The Pharos, built by the Romans as a lighthouse to guide their ships into the port, is probably the oldest Roman building still standing in Britain. Today, besides ro-ro ships arriving or leaving every few minutes, there are also hovercraft and jetfoil services.
Dover Harbour Board, a nonprofit making public trust, which dates from a mere 1606, says that the regular use of Dover in connection with communication between Britain and the Continent can be traced to 300 years before the Roman invasion of this island History apart, today Dover is still forward looking. It serves five routes: three to France — Calais (22 miles), Boulogne (25 miles) and Dunkirk (40 miles); and two to Belgium — Ostend (62 miles) and Zeebrugge (77 miles). The latest traffic figures (see table) for the first six months of this year show increases in all areas — in line with the Harbour Board's forecasts.
The number of accompanied and unaccompanied road haulage units amounted in June to 64,552 (June '83: 61,973). The number of scheduled ferry services came to 4,104 (June '83: 3,945). Passengers, too, were up — by eight per cent — at 1,639,737. It is Britain's biggest passenger port and Europe's largest ro-ro port.
With photographer Graham Richardson, I called on terminal manager Peter Cuttell towards the end of July for a look at the facilities, including the large coach centre opened only a few weeks ago. As he pointed out, Dover Harbour consists of two docks, Eastern (the larger) and Western, from which the hovercraft, jetfoil, train ferry (since the mid-1930s) and breakbulk services operate.
It was from the Admiralty Pier, at the western extremity of the harbour, that the first regular packet boat services to Ostend began. Today there are two classic ship berths alongside the pier and one ro-ro berth. In addition, there are lay-by berths.
Most of the adjacent land is leased from Dover Harbour Board by Sealink (recently taken over by the American firm Sea Containers, which has promised expansion). British Rail Southern Region headquarters are sited there and Motorail vehicles are congregated for shipment to France and various UK destinations.
Peter Cuttell's sixth floor office overlooks the Eastern Docks, which are, he said, divided into three land areas: export and import freight compounds, and assembly parks. Coaches, he pointed out go through separate immigration controls. There are six common users docks and one operated exclusively by Townsend Thorensen for freight only. Until the early part of this year an eighth dock was used by the Schiaffino Line, which has since moved to Ramsgate. This company moved because the Camber area is being reclaimed for freight handling.
"The present facilities are heavily used and there is not a lot of slack, but there is no practical limit to the extent that we could extend seawards if required," he said. "The major cause of delay is in the export freight compound and that will be overcome by the space at Camber. We are open 364 days a year (closed at Christmas) day and night.
"After 6pm is the favourite time for lorry drivers to arrive. Most of the traffic is destined for nearby Continental locations allowing the vehicles to tip the following morning. The heaviest import movement is a few hours behind in the early hours of the morning. The coach trade has a tendency to be the heaviest going out between 8am and 11am on Fridays and weekends and returning trade basically between 1pm and 6pm.
"Outward coaches are checked into our computerised booking system. Generally, passengers do not have to leave the coach through immigration. Most use the declaration system when they are all British, but it is up to the immigration officer. Restaurants and toilet facilities are available at the assembly parks."
I asked the terminal manager what dock strikes excepted are the reasons for the delays about which hauliers and drivers have at times complained to CM. "There are two reasons," he replied.
"There is the sheer volume of traffic in the early hours of the morning when we can fall back to one or two hours or even at times three to four hours. The other cause is paperwork error ... but other things can cause delays. Dover is a DEPS port, which means import freight is computerised through Customs central control. They select which vehicles are pulled out for examination. With 2,500 lorries a day in and out we need 32 examination bays; they are
continually busy during the week".
I askedMr Cuttell about his feelings forebodings if any concerning the new vat procedure to be followed from November 1. "The information I have", he said, "is that from an estimated 50,000 importers in Great Britain the Customs had expected around 12,000 applications for deferment facilities; at the last count 36,000 applications had been received.
"It depends how many of these are translated into fullblooded applications," he added.
Dover has more freight forwarders than anywhere else in the country, many in the Eastern Docks and two big ones in No 1 Control Building. "The interface between agents and Customs", he said, "is two clearance consortia, DFG and DCS, formed originally by groups of agents.
Customs could not deal with the multitude of agents. The consor tia also provide all labour for off-loading vehicles for examination and operate two customs security cages."
Many lorries through Dover are not on short Continental destinations; lots go on to Italy, a considerable number to Scan dinavia and some to the Middle East. "A very large number now go to Comecon countries," he added.
Dover also imports around 500 cars a day: Peugeot, Citroen and Talbot from Calais, and Daihatsu and Mitsubishi from Zeebrugge.