Brexit

[C8RKH]

3 hours ago, Chillidoggy said:

The problem with this is one of distance and the high running costs of a ferry or ship. It's the reason why ferries run from Dover to Calais and not Dover to Zeebrugge or Ostend any more. It's also the reason the Dover - Boulogne route was dropped many years ago; the extra distance proved to be too expensive and not enough punters were willing to stump up the extra.

At one time, the road network from Calais up to Belgium and Holland and down the western coast of France was pretty crappy. Now it's very good, so there's no advantage to be gained by operating a ferry service to contend with the road network. Because lorries travel faster than ships, a lorry leaving northern Spain and travelling up through France and then onto a ferry to Dover will be much faster and cheaper than sticking it on a ferry from northern Spain, so that's unlikely to be cost-effective.

Any of the longer ferry routes tend to be used for freight that is less time-sensitive, or 'drops' (an HGV trailer without it's tractor unit).

Bottom line is that the cost of operating ferries on the longer sea routes would almost certainly have to be taxpayer-subsidised, and I can't see that happening. On the other hand, the introduction of 'Free Ports' is in my view, the way to go.

So your solution is that we remain at the mercy of the French ports and unions who show every year their utter contempt for us and their willingness to hold us to ransom with their blockades, go slows, etc? 

As I said, build British high speed ferries in Britain, use green hydrogen to power them and subsidise the ferry routes away from France.  It's not about being petty but it is about ensuring that we have a consistent and reliable supply chain. We don't have to do it overnight and in a rush, and there is nothing now stopping us from subsidising ferry routes as we could subsidise the ticket price and therefore it is an open and "free" subsidy for all so not anti-competitive.  If we have a viable alternative it will stop us from being held to ransom. Makes sense to me but I am not of the sea so could be wrong and misguided.

 

 

[Barrykearley]

24 minutes ago, Bibs said:

Not sure how they'd park all their boats there, it's about 30 miles inland! 

They could use it to store the collection of inflatables

[Chillidoggy]

39 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

So your solution is that we remain at the mercy of the French ports and unions who show every year their utter contempt for us and their willingness to hold us to ransom with their blockades, go slows, etc? 

 

 

You’re missing the point. I’m a former P&O Ferries employee (over 10 years of previous service) who is attempting to explain why ferry operations exist in their current format, and point out some of the major obstacles in changing them.

I’m not a believer in subsidies and most governments also find them unpalatable, so unless any proposed new ferry operation is a nationalised one, it’ll have to not only wipe its face, but turn a profit. If we want this U.K. back-up plan to combat French fisherman and the French ports, then due to the fact it’s cheaper to operate Dover - Calais, we’re going to have to pay for it to sit idle until it’s required which is a bit like doubling the size of the British Army in the hope that we will need it, and I’m not sure the finances stack up.

This might seem pessimistic, but I suspect what you’re proposing is unlikely to come to pass, but equally I’ll be delighted if it does, as long as it works. 

 

[Andyww]

2 hours ago, Bibs said:

They're HMRC Customs lorry parks and for incoming traffic as I understand it. Surely now we've got a deal any lack of co-operation from them really wouldn't help them would it. 

Very odd. I had assumed these were for outbound. What a waste then.

[Bibs]

Apologies, you're quite right...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-53568309

I assumed the govt would be more interested in ensuring it was collecting tax on incoming goods. Not sure over £700m is well spent to make sure lorries have the correct paperwork before leaving the country.

[C8RKH]

@Chillidoggyas I said no expert am I. A national freight ferry service, running British built and crewed ships providing subsidised freight crossings and using green hydrogen to power the ships makes perfect sense to a landlubber like me.

I don't propose we only use them when the French ports close, but we use them as our preferred freight route. Go up as far North as Newcastle, Hull and Grimsby and we could take a lot of lorries off the M1, M25, M6 too reducing time on the road for goods (albeit counterbalanced with more time at sea).

[ChrisJ]

7 hours ago, pete said:

Instead of tax payer subsidised why not charge the foreign lorries to use our roads

There's a £10 a day charge for all HGVs (foreign registered included), and has been since 2014 - although the EU did threaten to take the UK to court because the UK charge was offset against the Road Tax, so was "unfair" to EU truckers.

Currently suspended until July 2021.

[Dave Eds]

4 hours ago, Barrykearley said:

They could use it to store the collection of inflatables

They'll turn it into a detention centre for asylum seekers......

[Barrykearley]

Yeah the fencing looks perfect 

[C8RKH]

9 minutes ago, Dave Eds said:

They'll turn it into a detention centre for asylum seekers......

Can we put Remainers who can't get over it in there too?

[Barrykearley]

One thing for sure - the DVLA website to transfer a car hasn’t been working all over Xmas - and still isn’t.

bloody welsh 

[andydclements]

I think they went away from GtYarmouth as the roads infrastructure was dire, possibly better now with Norwich fully by passed but still you'd not want any haulage to rely on the Acle straight.

For the non-locals, the main road through Norfolk, the A47 has a section c14km of single carriageway, one lane each side, no additional space between lanes (so no room to overtake without first moving into the lane of potentially approaching traffic to look for said traffic), with deep dykes either side as it's through marshy river estuary). A great piece of engineering many years ago, but not updated (built 1831) to reflect the motor car's / lorry's take-over of transportation.

[andydclements]

Land may not be in short supply but suitable land is, what's there is boggy (hence why we had to have our friends from the Netherlands help design and construct it) and has lots of endangered species living there. Cost to improve it would be astronomical even by road scheme scales of costs. 

Overall, I suspect the better route would be down the coast and across via Suffolk, which then means they might as well just dock at Felixstowe.

[C8RKH]

The ironic thing is if we were in France it would just get built. They seem to be able to get around the issues raised by the tree huggers and newt kissers quite easily. Sort of amazing really when you think how hard anything else is when dealing with French bureaucracy!

If it was me, I'd look at putting roll on trains in - one line in, one line out - roll the trucks straight on the flatbeds and drive them off the other end - no fuss, no hassle, two lines of "floating" rail to minimise the environmental impact, clean electricity to power the huge long trains, so lowering carbon impact and taking trucks of the unsuitable roads. 

Where there is a will and an open mid there is always a way, and I bet it would be a fraction of the cost of HS2 and deliver much more economic benefit as we need to shift the focus of commerce from the jam packed south and in particular the south east around Kent, Surrey, Sussexes and Hampshire which are over crowded. That in itself would ease pressure on the M25, the M1, M6 etc.  We need to now think differently and like @BuddsyI have always found the Dutch a lot easier to deal with business wise and more direct/pragmatic than the French.

And let us not fall in to the trap of just thinking it is French fisherfolk who will block their ports. Remember the farmers and their barricades of burning tyres, the truckers and that's before we start on the Air Traffic Controllers who are allowed to hold the whole of Europe to ransom every easter and holiday period with their strikes. For practical reasons (and not be vindictive) we cannot have a major supply route that can be blockaded or us held to ransom so easily. We need to stop this "southern" strategy we have and putting all our eggs into the one French basket.

[Neal H]

I think all this will have to stay on hold for a couple of decades until we’ve paid off the Covid bill.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Yes that makes the annual net contribution to the EU seem like chicken feed.

[Chillidoggy]

As well as the French fishermen, let’s not forget Brexit has reduced the Dutch, Belgian and Danish fishermen’s quota, too.

[mg4lotus]

Happy for you to keep all the traffic in the south east but if you are really desperate to avoid France (I like France) then as @C8RKH says Hull is available to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge

Ferry to Holland | Hull to Rotterdam | P&O Ferries

and Grimsby is geared up for goods traffic.

Want to go to Spain / Portugal then you have got Portsmouth and Plymouth.

To be honest, you sound like a bunch of schoolboys or even more juvenile, throwing your dummy out the pram.

[C8RKH]

44 minutes ago, Neal H said:

I think all this will have to stay on hold for a couple of decades until we’ve paid off the Covid bill.

Not at all. The SNP's chief policy advisor, as interviewed by Andrew Neil and shared on another thread on here, has said, we need to increase our spending. We need to borrow ever more. We need to invest in growth by using other people's money to pay for it and worry about paying it back in 20 years or so.  Nae bother as we say up here. Sorted. lovely. Interest rates are so low according to the SNP we'd be doing the lenders a massive favour by taking their money. Now, surely as the SNP have been telling Westminster for 13 years that they have got it all wrong and they couldn't run a piss up in a brewery, then surely Westminster will now finally listen to them, a country with the 3rd highest debt per capita / GDP in the western world, and take a good telling from the SNP as to how to really run a country properly!

29 minutes ago, Chillidoggy said:

As well as the French fishermen, let’s not forget Brexit has reduced the Dutch, Belgian and Danish fishermen’s quota, too.

Yes but then don't need the excuse that the day has a "Y" in it to strike!

[C8RKH]

8 minutes ago, mg4lotus said:

To be honest, you sound like a bunch of schoolboys or even more juvenile, throwing your dummy out the pram.

Why? Because we are trying to plan ahead and stop the country from being held to ransom? I mean, if the French did not have history on trying to do this I would agree with you.

By the way, like you, as I have said many times before on here I love France and really like the French (not so keen on Parisians but then as a scouser I'm not too keen on Mancs lol). I work for a French company! My second in fact. I've worked in Paris and holidayed in France many times. However, my love of France and most French people does not mean that I am blind to how the political elite play stuff like this out and how we, being an island at the end of the supply lines, can be severely damaged and held to ransom.

[Barrykearley]

The EU ideology is sadly so close to the early concepts of the Nazi party. There’s nothing in it I like at all.

 

[Chillidoggy]

Dover - Calais return from £126, hour and a half crossing. 22 crossings a day. Rotterdam via Calais, 5 hours, Zeebrugge via Calais, 3 hours.

Euro Tunnel, 35 minutes to Calais, return from £180, 35 trips a day.

 

Hull  - Rotterdam return from £318, 12 hour crossing. One ferry a day.

Hull - Zeebrugge return from £318, 13 hour crossing. One ferry a day.

 

Distance matters.

[mg4lotus]

Happy to keep all the traffic in the south east.

You like France but you don't want to go there or spend money there. You like French people but you want to hurt them economically.

You don't want to go to France but you don't want to use other routes.

Make your minds up.

[100th_Idiot]

On 28/12/2020 at 14:45, C8RKH said:

So your solution is that we remain at the mercy of the French ports and unions who show every year their utter contempt for us and their willingness to hold us to ransom with their blockades, go slows, etc? 

As I said, build British high speed ferries in Britain, use green hydrogen to power them and subsidise the ferry routes away from France.  It's not about being petty but it is about ensuring that we have a consistent and reliable supply chain. We don't have to do it overnight and in a rush, and there is nothing now stopping us from subsidising ferry routes as we could subsidise the ticket price and therefore it is an open and "free" subsidy for all so not anti-competitive.  If we have a viable alternative it will stop us from being held to ransom. Makes sense to me but I am not of the sea so could be wrong and misguided.

 

 

Build a tunnel to the Netherlands

[Chillidoggy]

11 minutes ago, 100th_Idiot said:

Build a tunnel to the Netherlands

 

Not an option. It's bound to be blocked by barricades made of fish caught by Dutch fishermen.