Thanks, yes I am aware of these considerations, but Peel Ports still have not addressed the basic problems of traffic flows in and out of the terminal and are thus at risk of loosing inbound traffic and existing export traffic due to cost disadvantages.
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Without getting into the whole road building debate, I'm not sure that Peel can take all the blame. The Seaforth entrance has been in existence since the early 1970's and apart from the short stretch of new road linking it with Church Road which I think was constructed later, there has been little investment in the local road network apart from changes to the junction at Switch Island in the last 40 odd years. Unless you are starting from scratch, it's almost impossible for any port authority in this country to build a road scheme linked to the national motorway system which obviously would be the preferred option, especially when the port is adjacent to established developments.
As for loosing traffic because of the lack of the suitable external infrastructure, I'm not sure this a major issue. Nowadays the shipping lines serving the ports tend to control the inland distribution of containers and many offer a multi UK port option so for example whilst ACL is regarded as a Liverpool carrier, it does actually offer services to the USA and Canada on Hapag Lloyd operated services from London Gateway and Southampton for southern based shippers and consignees. MSC main UK port call is Felixstowe, but they operate feeder ships into Liverpool, Portbury, Greenock, Grangemouth, Teesport and Tilbury as well as slots on services if and were necessary in addition to rail services from Felixstowe. Since the road catchment area for container traffic is about o125-150 miles the present traffic through the port, is easily handled competitively by road transport. However, once Liverpool2 comes on stream and the size of vessel increases from currently 4000 teu to potentially 18000 teu, invariably the numbers will change and hence the reason now to plan. Incidentally as a regular user of Dunningsbridge Road for the last 12 months or so, I reckon that container traffic accounts for only about 50 to 60% of all HGV movements, with bulk products such as grain, animal feed, metal and scrap all contributing heavily to the balance. Some of these commodities would be unlikely to move in containers which makes Liverpool slightly different to the likes of Felixstowe were the effects of expansion are much easier to identify. [/QUOTE]
These schemes may all be technically feasible but as before, there is no analysis of potential market demand for the proposed services, and no business case to support the expenditure.
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Yes, I have heard that suggested before, and I think it was looked at prior to the Liverpool South Gateway going ahead, but the problem is that without direct access for regional and long-distance traffic, the level of patronage on a Liverpool City Centre shuttle would be insufficient to justify the expenditure for such a small airport
At this stage, agree all only proposals.
A petty abysmal effort - only worth a grade D I think.
Once again, an exercise in repackaging aspirations & fantasies (some of which date from the 60s, and some of which have already been discounted) as new policy, this time for the LCR, but with minimal or no progress in the meantime, and all the hard work on justification yet to be done. Also includes items that fall outside of LCR's remit. One area of merit is that they have listened (or would that be plagiarism
) to comments made as far back as 2005 regarding the approach towards the Borderlands line.
Overall; A bureaucratic exercise in paper-pushing to justify the existence of the LCR and Merseytravel, but which is likely to be of most use in the political fisticuffs that are bound to arise as the various rag-tag of tinsel and baubles are shot down.
Let's take the positives out of it, at least it is a plan, ok it may lack a lot of detail including costs and technical aspects, but as it is the politicians and civil servants that ultimately have the final say in decision making process is it really necessary at this stage. I'd agree as each scheme moves forward the business case etc for each scheme needs to be studied and costed in great detail for the experts to evaluate and recommend or otherwise for approval. Whether this is a paper pushing exercise or not will remain unanswered until we start to see any of the schemes being committed to. In fact the report even admits some schemes may still not see the light of day for this reason.
3.5 The Strategy proposes a number of packages with an indicative timeline for
potential implementation over the next 30 years. Considerable work will be needed
to develop the detailed case for each of the packages and schemes and it is
acknowledged that not all of the proposals will come to fruition, but this should not
detract from the clear benefits of major investment. The strategy has been
designed to offer flexibility through regular review and whilst economic
circumstances evolve and the business case for interventions will correspondingly
fluctuate, the vision remains unchanged that rail should play a key role in helping
deliver the economic vision of the LCR
Only time will tell, but at least it is a start which should be applauded.
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Cooperation between Liverpool and adjacent authorities relating to the airport pre-dates the MPTA of the late 60s, but the problem is that airlines are not attracted to the airport; in recent years a number of new airlines have looked at the airport but have then abandoned proposals after looking at the details of their business cases; the airport is still operating below its previous peak. Adding rail-links is unlikely to significantly change this.
Manchester is the only global city in the north of England and it is it's airport that is going to be the principle beneficiary of future growth in air-travel in the region. All the more so with the Government's aim of concentrating development on Manchester to push it into the second tier of global cities, which will to a degree be to teh detriment to the other urban areas in the region..
There may well have been cooperation prior to the MPTA, but the way it was organised in Manchester was clearly the successful model and hence today's solution. Yes' passengers numbers have dropped recently but perhaps this was only to be expected with the slump, but now with the ownership back under Peels control there are signs that numbers are returning albeit slowly.
I'd agree there is shortage of airlines, with the corresponding knock on effect on passenger numbers, and I suspect most people at this end of the East Lancs would agree that JLA is never going to catch Manchester Airport in terms of volumes, but as the regions economy improves the prospects for airtravel will increase although they may specialise in different complimentary markets. Any scheme for a rail link for JLA is any event many years away, an might only be justified as part of any scheme to provide a rail link to Speke residential area and certainly something which is not going to happen overnight.
As for the global cities discussion, the only way that is going to happen in the North is for the resources of Liverpool and Leeds and perhaps even Sheffield to be combined with Manchester to build anything near London, and good communication links between the locations will be necessary in order to try and rebalance the entire UK economy.
Actually both cities (Liverpool & Manchester including in-between) need each other for different reasons, one without the other would not have the same prestige and aspirations. They complement each other as both cities have different strengths.
