Thames Freeport - Britain's Trading Future

[ 88 ] G P S M A R I N E As a business that operates 45,000 tonnes of barge capacity and 16 tugs, 750,000 tonnes per annum is insufficient to sustain its entire fleet and so contracting work on major infrastructure projects along the Thames, undertaking contracts elsewhere in the UK and in mainland Europe and, occasionally, even further afield are also vital to the continued success of GPS Marine. The business is BS EN 9001 and BS EN 140001 accredited and also operates a safety management system that conforms to the requirements of the International Safety Management Code for operators that have voluntarily opted to adopt it. The company has provided logistical support and river transport services to numerous major projects along the banks of the Thames for many years. Among these are the Canary Wharf Development, the Bakerloo and Northern Line tunnel strengthening scheme, Crossrail’s eastern running tunnels, the Northern Line extension project and, most recently, the Thames Tideway Tunnel project. GPS Marine provided each of these projects with technical and logistical expertise as well as practical skills and a level of service made possible by its large, well maintained, modern and diverse fleet of contracting vessels. On the Northern Line extension project, moving spoil by river was found to be so successful that the main works contractor, Ferrovial Laing O’Rourke JV, diverted 200,000 tonnes of spoil from road transport to barge in addition to the 660,000 tonnes that GPS Marine had contracted to transport from the project to a beneficial reuse site at East Tilbury. On the Tideway Tunnel central contract, GPS Marine has transported over 2 million tonnes of spoil away from the main drive site at Kirtling Street, Battersea and from six other satellite sites by barge along the Thames to East Tilbury. In addition, the company’s barges have delivered pre-cast concrete elements, fill materials, machinery, steel piles and rebar cages to riverside sites associated with the Tideway project. In June 2020 alone, GPS Marine transported over 200,000 tonnes of cargo on the Thames. These figures illustrate the capacity and capability both of GPS Marine as an individual operator, and of the River Thames as a highway on which to move cargo. GPS Marine continues to work with the Port of London Authority and other stakeholders to try to reactivate safeguarded wharves on the Thames in efforts to increase the volume of freight moved on the river. It is hoped that Thames Freeport, being formed of three established ports, can offer an immediate solution to increasing freight tonnage carried on the river. Goods transported between the freeport locations at Dagenham, Tilbury and Corringham need not add to congestion on the A13 or A1014, instead this cargo can be moved in a cost effective but more environmentally friendly and sustainable way by making use of the vastly underused and chronically undervalued highway that is the River Thames. As is routinely demonstrated in mainland Europe, barges can readily transport a wide variety of goods in a cost effective and efficient manner. Barges can be used to transport bulk cargo, waste, containerised goods, palletised goods, unusual or project cargo and construction materials of all types. In this way, not only can raw materials make use of river transport, but goods manufactured at any of the Freeport sites can be transported between the sites for further processing or for export. In mainland Europe, the EU is committed to increasing the volume of freight carried on its inland waterways by 25 per cent to further efforts to meet its environmental targets. It is unfortunate that the UK fails to appreciate the relatively easy environmental win that can be achieved by making proper use of its maritime assets and optimising the use of its rivers, harbours, inland waterways and coastal shipping Since the advent of containerisation and the decline of the upriver docks and wharves, London has become increasingly disconnected from the River Thames. GPS Marine is one of very few businesses that has brought back regular, intra-port trade to the Thames over the past 20 years, now transporting approximately 750,000 tonnes per annum of construction related cargo on the river under long term arrangements with its clients. GPS Battler pushing barges loaded with spoil from the Northern Line extension project