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Changing Times
The plans progressed last year to expand Britain's port capacity are looking increasingly unrealistic against the background of a downturn in world trade.
Reasoned Arguments
Felixstowe has been seeking permission to expand its capacity, quoting an anticipated growth in world trade, an increase in the size of containerships and a shortage of box capacity in the UK as justification.
Under Review?
Each of these premises is looking increasingly unreliable and it is inconceivable that an internal review of the options is not already taking place.
Enough is enough
Hutchison's own plans for Felixstowe and its other UK ports of Harwich and Thamesport were substantial, even without taking into account P & O's plans for Shellhaven
see Harwich to Expand ?
see Felixstowe to Expand?
There was opposition too:
see Wandering Free
see Port Expansion
see Expansion Doubts
which was largely countered by arguments centring on the necessity of expansion to meet increased demand.
Hutchison are a normal commercial organisation and if the demand is not there, they will not spend money to meet it.
They may, however, feel no necessity to make a public announcement of a review or a change in plans.
In the same Boat
Hutchison's main rival for the cargo bounty of these islands, P & O, will find themselves in the same boat.
Their massive plans for expansion
see Rival Port
see Thames Revitalised
depend on increasing trade too, and on what Hutchison decide to do.
A Card Game
Both will be watching world trade trends and each other. A familiar enough situation in shipping.
The maritime world is about competition and co-operation, sometimes one trend predominates, sometimes the other.
One holds the danger of plundering the customer, the other the countryside.
Sometimes, we all have to settle for one or the other.
A national miscalculation on capacity needed resulting in overcapacity would damage the environment.
A lack of capacity would result in higher costs, ultimately paid by the consumer
You don't have to dislike or distrust Britain's ports to come to the conclusion that it is always worth keeping an eye on their activities.
Personality ultimately prevails
Ultimately shipping and its ports is all about people; their ambitions, successes and disappointments.
Giant egos and vast financial resources fight an endless battle on a global scale.
Despite the veneer of sophisticated analysis, it is about judgement in a changing world - and that takes a lot of guesswork.
If they get it wrong too many times, they go, but their failed projects can leave behind distress and unhappiness.
That is why we have the right, always, to challenge their thinking and to ask why they seek to change our lives.
Giant Mistakes
One of the big impetuses behind port expansion was the growth in size of modern container vessels.
Ship-owners, the word over, vied to order the biggest.
This strategy is always dangerous and eventually self-defeating; a kind of maritime "pyramid scam" that has an inevitable disastrous end.
see End of the Line
Follow the leader
Seaports have little option but to hang onto the coat-tails of the big liner operators.
They can hardly question some of their biggest customers' judgements and continue to enjoy their business without providing adequate facilities for their vessels.
The slow down in the pace of the growth in world trade will allow ports time to develop their thinking on future capacity.
We await their announcements.
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