Humber is the "logical choice" for freight, major industry conference will be told
THE case for the Humber as the “logical choice” for freight coming to the north will be made at the UK’s leading logistics event.
Lord Haskins, chairman of the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership and this year’s winner of TheBusinessDesk’s Yorkshire Ambassador award, will be part of a strong delegation that will be hosting a seminar, HumberPort: Opening the door to the Northern Powerhouse, at the Multimodal 2015 conference next week.
The three-day event at the NEC in Birmingham attracts 7,500 delegates is billed as the UK’s premier freight transport, logistics and supply chain management event.
Prof Amar Ramudhin, director of the Logistics Institute at the University of Hull, said: “The Humber is the logical choice for shippers. Use of the HumberPort complex minimises transportation time and distance to the heart of the UK’s logistics industry, builds greater resilience in their supply chains, and improves their distribution networks.
“We have a multi-purpose ports system within a unique estuary. Our message is ‘come to the Humber – whatever your type of freight, we have a port for you’.
“It’s also an open gateway to the Northern powerhouse. With the Humber on the east coast and Liverpool on the west, it creates a golden corridor of trade that is vital to growth of the North and better serves the growing trend of manufacturing and distribution centres moving further north. This will re-balance the UK economy, reduce congestion and drive down logistics costs.”
The seminar will set out the Humber’s strategic advantages, including access within four hours drive time to 75% of the UK’s manufacturing facilities and 40 million people.
Peter Aarosin, chief executive of logistics business Danbrit and ports operator RMS Group said it made business sense for shippers to choose the Humber as their entry point into the UK, to reduce transport time and costs, citing the example of goods entering through Southampton destined for a distribution centre in Leeds, involving a round trip of 500 miles, as opposed to 120 miles via the Humber ports.
Mr Aarosin said as well as the opportunity to draw more cargo into the estuary, the Humber offered an attractive prospect for investment linked to increased imports.
He added: “We have the largest available land banks of any port or estuary in the UK and excellent transport links, so there is a major opportunity for manufacturers and distributors to build their distribution centres on the banks of the Humber and also for the Humber to attract added-value industries.”
The HumberPort partnership is being re-energised to build on the momentum achieved by the branding of the Humber as the UK’s Energy Estuary, major investment into the Humber by big players such as Siemens, and the opportunity presented by the Northern Powerhouse concept.
Prof Ramudhin added the Multi Modal event presented an excellent opportunity to promote the Humber as vital to the growth of the Northern economy.
“With the Humber on the east coast and Liverpool on the west, you have end-to-end connectivity, with trade coming in from one way or the other and logistics parks in the middle, clustered around West Yorkshire,” he added.
“You could also foresee this corridor being used as an integrated multimodal route for freight coming in from the west and destined to the north of Europe and vice versa, when the right logistics infrastructure and services are in place.
“The Humber is a winning situation for shippers and logistics service providers. We offer space to invest and grow, excellent infrastructure, skilled people and, most importantly, great connectivity to markets in the UK, Europe and beyond.”
