CREATION of a Felixstowe-Harwich "super-port" has taken a major step forward with the terminals' owners submitting a formal application to government for the £400 million project.

CREATION of a Felixstowe-Harwich "super-port" has taken a major step forward with the terminals' owners submitting a formal application to government for the £400 million project.

Hutchison Ports (UK) Ltd has handed in a series of documents, including an environmental impact assessment, to Stephen Byers, Secretary of state for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, seeking permission to build a container terminal at Bathside Bay.

The idea is to reclaim the tidal bay from the sea by building a massive quay wall to enclose it and provide water 15 metres deep so that the world's largest ships can call.

It will create at Harwich a 250-acre terminal able to handle 1.7 million boxes a year.

The terminal will boast 1,400m of quay and be capable of handling concurrently four deep sea container ships.

It will provide 500 new jobs plus perhaps 1,500 more in associated industries.

In all, it will be one third of the size of Felixstowe Port a mile across the water

Hutchison Ports UK, part of the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Group, wants to start work on the project in the next year. A £500,000 geological survey has already been carried out to help develop detailed engineering designs.

The development will be phased with the first berths expected to be available late in 2003 or early 2004.

The company now has to wait until the end of January to see if there are any objections to its proposals.

Harwich Haven Authority has also submitted to Mr Byers details of how it will dispose of dredged material from the Bathside development site and the deepening of the shipping lane for about a mile leading to it.

Development of Bathside Bay and the planned extension of Felixstowe's Trinity Terminal will give Hutchison Ports greater options and flexibility for trade in the harbour, as well as helping to overcome a national shortfall in container capacity.

WEBLINK: www.hph.com.hk