Tees Valley Ports and Rail Freight
In the last year following the floating on the stock market the port parent company PD Ports plc was sold to Babcock & Brown Infrastructure in February 2006, this is expected to continue the development of the ports activities.
A planning application has been submitted for a new deep sea container terminal on the Teesport site aimed at continuing the growth of Teesport in the container shipping market. The owners of Teesport have started to publicise this development and campaigning against the growth of the southern ports pointing out that a large volume of southern ports traffic is destined for the north of UK and that Teesport would be a more convenient alternative to the present situation.
To support Teesport's development and growth a bid for funding through the DfT Transport Innovation Fund was made in January 2006 to undertake the assessment of the issues relating to the enhancement of the rail gauge to W10, between Doncaster and Teesport, to allow the passage of full size High Cube containers.
An announcement was made during June 2006 that the sub-region has been shortlisted in terms of the Productivity TIF process. The Teesport/ECML rail gauge enhancement scheme will now be taken forward for further business case development and appraisal.
In addition to the increased container traffic together with Teesside Cast Products, Teesport is looking to increase the export of slab steel from the Corus works. This has required the improvement of the rail links between Redcar steel works across the Darlington to Saltburn rail line into the port’s steel export terminal.

Next