Invest in rail and road links before we jump the EU ship
Britain is an island nation, and for centuries it has looked to the sea for prosperity and partnership.
Today, the maritime sector contributes £40bn to the UK’s GDP and supports one million jobs.
Some 95 per cent of all our imports and exports, totalling £500bn, move by sea.
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But trade doesn’t start and end at our ports. An efficient trade network requires a highly developed web of roads and railways that connect those ports to each other and to the main markets throughout the rest of the country.
An independent commission found in February 2017 that our road and rail links were “outdated” in many parts of the country, and that this had implications for growth, jobs, and travel. It noted that the north of England in particular was losing billions of pounds in potential income.
What was clear was that, if trade is to thrive in post-Brexit Britain, we need better domestic connectivity and infrastructure to make “Global Britain” a reality.
Amid a row in the cabinet over the approach to Brexit, David Davis said last month that the UK will be able to negotiate trade deals as soon as it leaves the EU.
All sides agree that, as we sever ties to the EU, we must establish new ones with our historic trading partners: the countries of the Commonwealth, for example, and the exciting, emerging markets of Asia and South America.
We all know that trade is pivotal to a successful British future, but the maritime sector’s uniquely crucial role in this vision is often overlooked.
To start with, Brexit brings uncertainty over our ports. Our biggest concerns are Dover and Holyhead. There will be new customs requirements that could cause particular challenges for roll-on roll-off ferry ports which handle tens of thousands of HGVs travelling between the UK and the EU each day.
So perhaps free ports – free trade zones around port areas – could be explored. Whether they are possible or not depends upon the final deal. But we should properly explore the proposal as part of prudent preparation for either scenario – if we have no deal, we’ll be encouraged to think more innovatively, and free ports are one such innovative idea.
But there is a wider problem, which stems from the lack of recognition of the importance of our ports and the areas around them in the planning system.
Ports are vital hubs of economic activity and major centres of employment. Many of them are in deprived, post-industrial areas. A wider understanding of their significance and a commitment to government protection would have far-reaching benefits, not least the wholesale transformation of entire regions.
You only need to look at the importance of the Humberside ports to the regeneration of Hull, Immingham, Goole, and Grimsby – all of which have historically been blighted by high unemployment and poverty – to see this in action.
Even if the economic benefits of ports themselves are recognised, once you leave the port gate, you find right away that connectivity to the main markets, and to the other ports, is poor: there is not enough capacity on our rail network, too few lanes, roads and bypasses on our motorway network, and difficult junctions in key bottleneck areas to allow for the smooth transfer of goods.
On major roads there are near-constant delays that choke the supply chain. This needs to improve everywhere, not least so that our hauliers can drop off cargo and immediately take on a second load for the return stretch of their journey.
We need better domestic connectivity all around the country – for example, investing in strategic connectivity from the Midlands to the cities of the south so that we can increase our automotive exports.
At present, it takes an hour and a half to travel to Portsmouth from Southampton by rail, despite their relative proximity. In the north of the country, similar regional cities such as Manchester and Liverpool or Newcastle and Sunderland are far better connected.
Our existing road and rail connections to our ports are long overdue for improvement, and, with the export supply chain in mind, their development should be considered as important – if not more so – as the other major transport infrastructure operations underway in the UK at the moment, such CrossRail and the expansion of London’s airports.
We need to not only place our focus on new projects, such as the so-called four Hs (HS2, HS3, Hinckley Point, and Heathrow), but also on existing projects, and on how we might improve their efficiency.
Investment in infrastructure is an intelligent economic move and one that needs to be made to safeguard Britain’s future as an outward-looking trading hub in the wake of Brexit. By facilitating trade, we will attract inward investment at our ports and breathe new life into our deprived coastal economies. In doing this, global Britain will be a success.
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