"Rubbish figures" accusation by MPs

10:49am Thursday 23rd November 2006

CONSULTANTS who claimed a planned £300m container terminal at Teesport will be a white elephant were accused yesterday of producing "rubbish" figures.

A committee of MPs has heard repeated attacks on a key conclusion that the expansion of three southern ports will provide sufficient capacity for deep-sea services until 2020.

Teesport operator PD Ports has led other ports in disputing a prediction by the consultants, MDS Transmodal, that annual growth in container traffic will be under five per cent.

Critics have pointed to the current rate of growth in trade worldwide - about twice the MDS figure - to claim it is a serious underestimate.

Yesterday, MDS managing director Mike Garratt revealed he had been asked by the Department for Transport (DfT) to conclude road and rail links could easily cope with carrying goods from the South.

Yet, just minutes later, the DfT's head of ports division, admitted there were problems with congestion on key routes, such as the M25, M1 and M6.

Peter Carey told the transport select committee: "Those directly affect approaches into ports."

Gwyneth Dunwoody, the committee's Labour chairwoman, said to Mr Garratt: "There has been a lot of rubbishing of your figures. There doesn't seem to be a lot of faith in them."

And Louise Ellman, another Labour member, said some of its witnesses had claimed there was "a bias towards the South-East".

But Mr Garratt stood by his assessment that the expanded Southern ports would be big enough for the whole country - and that any attempt to divert shippers to the North would fail.

He said: "What I think will happen, if the extra capacity is not provided in the South- East, is that the large shippers will divert to the Continent."

Teesport's plans - on which 5,500 jobs depend - are backed by The Northern Echo's Support Our Port campaign.

There was fury when the DfT approved port expansions at Felixstowe and Bathside Bay. It is "minded to approve"

expansion on the Thames, at Shell Haven.

Meanwhile, PD Ports did not submit its plans until April, although it believes its terminal could be operational by 2009, ahead of two of its rivals.

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