Route between super ports of Liverpool and Hull to be part of ‘global corridor’

VETERAN politician Lord John Prescott has predicted a ‘northern corridor’ between Liverpool and Hull could become a booming new trade route to serve the entire globe.

Prescott, the longest serving Deputy Prime Minister in history between 1997 and 2007, made the proclamation as headline speaker at the International Property Forum at IFB2016 at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool.

The 78-year-old, who also served as Labour MP for Hull for 40 years, told a hall full of dinner guests: “I’m not exactly a fan of the Northern Powerhouse, but I’m prepared to work with it.

“The growth that’s been developed so far, is largely along the corridor between Manchester and Leeds.”

But he went on to point out that the widening of the Panama Canal and the introduction of larger containers to the super port of Liverpool was already having a big effect.

And he spoke of a memorandum being drawn up between Liverpool and his adopted home city Hull to make more of the corridor across the North.

“When you think of the main entrance and exit for the biggest consumer market for Europe is Dover,” he said. “87% of our freight now goes via Dover, where there are proposals to build a lorry park for 4,000 lorries. It makes sense to develop a northern route.

“I’m talking about just a new European route to take you from Ireland over into Europe.

“It starts now with the development going on in containerisation here in Liverpool, looking at the changes coming about because of the widening of the Panama Canal.

“Liverpool is now taking more trade from America and other parts of the world, having to meet the big demand for container vessels.

“It goes across the northern route – we’ve got a need for improvements to the M62 and the northern rail route – and when you get to Hull, it doesn’t stop there.

“It goes into Europe via Rotterdam, but also the Baltic, and when you go into the Baltic, that is the area that traffic is now beginning to grow.

“If you look at the development of the Arctic trade, China is now talking about bringing traffic right across.

“These are changes which are taking place. This is not just a northern or European corridor, but is in fact global corridor. So the northern corridor is not just a argument about NP or Northern Way, it’s developing the two great assets we’ve got in the North – the two major super ports we’ve got in the regions, connected to trade into Europe and into the Baltic. That is a major change.”

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close