For the first time in two generations, a commercial vessel will dock next week at a new deep-water port in London.
The container ship MOL Caledon will bring in fruit and wine from South Africa.
The new port is part of the redevelopment of three square miles of derelict oil refinery land on the Thames. It is being converted into a container port called London Gateway which aims to rival Felixstowe, Britain’s biggest container port, and Southampton.
London Gateway claims to be the first new major deep-sea container port created in Britain this century.
The vast majority of Britain’s imports arrive by sea, and Gateway was designed to attract deep-water ships from Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore.
“We’re talking about the biggest ships in the world – 400m long and capable of carrying 18,000 containers. It’s those ships that we’ve built London Gateway for,” according to Simon Moore, CEO of Gateway.
The adjacent land will be developed into Europe’s largest logistics park. A rail terminal has recently opened to transfer goods.
The £1.5bn investment is said to be on schedule and on budget.
The work included the relocation of 350,000 animals in the biggest movement of wildlife yet seen in Europe.
Dredging 100km of estuary and the North Sea involved exploding 150 wartime bombs; more than a dozen wrecked ships and a German bomber were also discovered.
