Major problems at Southampton Container Terminal continue

One month ago today (18 January) a crane accident at Southampton Container Terminal forced the near shut down of the UK's second largest container port.  One crane was broken and others had to be taken out of service for safety checks.

One month on, the terminal still has only five out of 11 cranes operating.  Near normal working conditions are not now expected until the middle of March, or possibly later - at least two months after the original incident.

FTA's Head of Global Supply Chain Policy, Christopher Snelling said, 'This is a serious and ongoing problem.  Southampton and Felixstowe are the key links to the Far East for the UK.  Companies around the country are still having to reroute deliveries through continental ports, adding delay and cost into supply chains.  Hauliers are losing out massively as goods are not getting through to be delivered.  Forward planning to deal with the ongoing problems has been impossible as it has not been clear until now how long the problems will last.  Now companies will need to be making alternative plans for another month at least.

'The clearest comparison is with the Network Rail engineering overruns at Rugby over Christmas.  The current situation at Southampton is of an equal severity to those rail problems, and has now been going on for a month, with another month of problems still to come.

'Accidents happen, and safety should always be paramount, but two months to recover from such a serious problem is far too long.  This once again shows how overextended is our current container port capability.  We need to see massive expansion of our ports, and significant investment in improving the facilities available.'

Source: Transportweekly