Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour

Construction of the outer Harbour August 2007

Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour is a port constructed on the east coast of England at Great Yarmouth. Construction work on the Outer Harbour began in June 2007.[1] The harbour which is built in the South Denes area was planned to bring trade to the area. The plans included a container terminal and a passenger ferry terminal, but with no confirmed contracts these were not built.

Planning and Construction

The contract for the harbour construction was awarded jointly to Van Oord UK Ltd and Edmund Nuttall Ltd. The contract was worth in the region of £75m. The new harbour consists of construction of two breakwaters with a total length of approximately 1,400m, requiring the importation of approximately 900,000 tons of rock materials. There was dredging and subsequent beneficial reuse of approximately 1,600,000 m3 of sand to provide 17.6 ha of land for future port development. The joint venture constructed approximately 450 metres of quay wall with associated capping beam and crane rail as well as 225 metres of revetment berth and associated berthing dolphins. Work commenced on site in June 2007. Completion was expected within two years with a fully operational container berth available after 18 months.

Great Yarmouth Port Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Port Holdings (IPH) which was formed in 2006 with a strategy to invest in small to medium-sized ports having the potential to expand in scope and scale, and to contribute to regeneration initiatives and economic development. The scheme received £8.75m in funding from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). Great Yarmouth Port Authority and IPH reached an agreement for Great Yarmouth Port Company to develop the Outer Harbour and take over the operation of the port.

Progress

The new harbour saw the construction of two breakwaters of 850,000 tons of Rock, 1400 metres in length. Each arm has an internal Combi-pile wall of approximately 400 metres in length. Inside the harbour the seabed is dredged to 10 metres average depth. This produced 1.65 million cubic metres of sand which was used for reclamation work on the new Harbour. The remains of a 34-year-old wreck, the 353-ton Dutch coaster Polaris, were removed from the Harbour. The Polaris, which sank in February 1973, had lain on the seabed about 100 metres from the shoreline in the middle of the outer harbour site.

As of late April 2009, the northern quay was substantially complete with fenders, mooring bollards and gantry crane rails installed. The arrival of the 'Zhen Hua 6', carrying two gantry cranes manufactured by ZPMC happened on 4 May 2009.

On 19 May 2009 Gantry Crane 01 was unloaded from the ship after bad weather had caused a delay to this operation. On 21 May 2009 Gantry Crane 02 was unloaded from the ship. Both cranes have stood idle since their arrival, except for a few training sessions.

New Ferry Route

Initially the idea of the outer harbour was sold to the public as a ferry terminal with 150,000 trucks passing through yearly and 10,000 jobs created. Before the deal was signed for the construction of the Outer Harbour, Superfast Ferries disappeared from the scene and in a press release Managing Director Eddie Freeman of Great Yarmouth Port Company Ltd was reported as saying that he had never promised a ro-ro terminal. This seems to be reinforced by Peter Hardy of Great Yarmouth Borough Council who in the same article was reported as saying people should not get too hung up about a ro-ro terminal.

As of November 2010 the Great Yarmouth outer harbour is in the process of having its cranes removed and there will be no ro-ro ferry and no container terminal. Eastport's Eddie Freeman stated that the removal of the two £7,000,000 cranes was a welcome development as it will allow Eastport to concentrate on offshore windfarms, although there is no concrete prospect of a windfarm business support facility.

References

  1. ↑ Maritime Journal (July 2007) Archived 7 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine.

Coordinates: 52°34′33″N 1°44′22″E / 52.5759°N 1.7394°E / 52.5759; 1.7394

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