Week Ending: Union J in the building; The secrets of Liverpool2
WE all know TheBusinessDesk.com has a devoted and passionate following so it came as no surprise when hordes of people gathered outside our office at Manchester One.
The fact they were all teenage girls suggested, perhaps, that regional business news has found a new audience.
Imagine how we felt when it transpired they were all there waiting for X-Factor flops Union J who were in the building for an appearance on the radio station Gaydio.
The coiffed, buffed and auto-tuned quartet awkwardly negotiated the revolving doors, below, to meet fans before visiting TheBusinessDesk.com to find out more about the resurgent IPO market and the potential legacy of Liverpool’s International Festival for Business.
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YOUR correspondent has spent the past two weeks trying to get some figures from
Peel Holdings to illustrate the future impact of the £300m Liverpool2 deep water port, but nothing has been forthcoming.
We needed the numbers to show the projected increase in annual freight volumes passing through the port once it can handle much larger ships, the type that can carry up to 13,000 20 ft containers. At the moment it can handle ships with up to 5,000 on board.
I imagined this was the kind of data that is frequently wheeled out to justify the expansion, which is being partly funded by a £35m grant from the Government through the regional growth fund, and a £150m loan from the European Investment Bank.
On Wednesday, after all the dither and delay, I was told these projected figures could not be disclosed because they’re commercially sensitive.
Fair enough, Peel may not want the bosses of Southampton or Felixstowe to know how much freight they hope to poach in the coming years. But when the city is setting out its stall as a freight and logistics hub under the Superport brand a few numbers to illustrate the scale of that ambition wouldn’t go amiss.
