Liverpool2 Official Opening Ceremony Today

One of the world’s most modern shipping terminals, Liverpool2, will be officially opened today, November 4th 2016, at the Port of Liverpool by the Secretary of State for International Trade, Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP.

The £400 million investment by Peel Ports will provide a state-of-the-art ocean gateway for UK importers and exporters with road, rail and canal connections linking directly to the heart of the UK mainland, accessing a catchment of over 35 million people, almost 58% of the UK’s population.

The new deep water facility will complement the existing Royal Seaforth Container Terminal at the existing Port of Liverpool, with each terminal having capacity to handle around 1 million containers per annum.

Key facts and figures:

• The terminal construction has seen a site of around 16 hectares reclaimed from the sea. There is a new 854m quay wall and land created from 5.5 million tonnes of sand and silt dredged from the Mersey. The site is large enough to accommodate the stadiums of all four major Liverpool and Manchester football clubs.
• The site currently has five ‘megamax’ ship to shore (STS) transfer cranes and 12 quayside container handling cranes (known as CRMGs). Ultimately there will be another three STS cranes and 10 CRMGs. These alone have cost £100m.
• The apex of the STS cranes is 92m – four meters short of the height of Westminster’s Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben clock tower). When the boom is raised, it is more than 130m high.
• 35 million people in the UK & Ireland live closer to Liverpool than the traditional container ports in the South of England.
• 58% of the UK’s population is closer to Liverpool than its competitor ports in the south.
• 112km radius around Liverpool has the largest volume and density of large warehousing of any UK region.
• More than 28% of the UK’s large warehousing is located in that area.
• The North-west has seen a number of significant investments in supply chain warehousing, including warehouses to serve Waitrose, Aldi, Poundland, B&M, Matalan, Missguided and many others.