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Moving freight to water women in Transport
Page 10
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• The Department for Transport is funding a new organisation which aims to take freight off the roads in the UK and put it onto water.
Launched by shipping minister David Jamieson, the Short Sea and Waterways Forum (sswr) will act as a central co-ordinating point for water freight interests in the UK. It will receive £120,000 a year from the DfT for the first three years, after which is it expected
to operate on a commercially-viable basis.
A spokeswoman for the DfT says that currently 1% of freight is moved by water: the new body has a target to increase that to 3%. 'It will mainly look at non-time-sensitive loads, such as waste and aggregates."
The SSWF aims to raise awareness of the advantages of water freight as a transport mode, and provide a direct line of communication between industry and the government; it will also run the Short Sea Shipping Promotion Centre, which will promote the benefits of water freight transport across the UK and within the EU.
British Waterways has also launched a new freight marketing initiative, and says it is actively seeking more customers. Last week, it signed a freight contract with Hanson Aggregates and Harleyford Aggregates which will remove 45,000 truck movements over a seven-year period from the roads of West London (CM17-23 July). The scheme, to move 450,000 tonnes of sand and gravel by canal, has been awarded /222,000 from the DfT and £240,000 by London's Waterway Partnership to pay for infrastructure, equipment and vessels.