LONDON 8 JULY 2011 – A grain storage co-operative, based at Medina Wharf on the Isle of Wight, has helped safeguard its future thanks to a new 20-year lease, signed with the port operator and logistics firm, PD Ports.
Isle of Wight Grain Storage Ltd, which handles 90% of arable crops grown on the Island, has seen volumes more than double in the past two decades. The company agreed a new contract with PD Ports in 2010 giving them a more secure tenure and the confidence to invest again on the Island.
The contract had led to a £400,000 project to develop Hopper bottomed silos which was aided by a SEEDA (South East England Development Agency) grant. Due to the shape of these new silos grain intake will speed up and ship loading ability will be improved.
Chris Sprackling, General Manager of Isle of Wight Grain since 1989, spoke of the new PD Ports lease: “Since the new contract has been signed we feel that Isle of Wight Grain is now secure for the next 20 years, and in best position to handle the Island’s arable produce.”
Michael Dowson, Group Property Development Manager at PD Ports commented: “We were delighted to forge the deal with Isle of Wight Grain, which represents a sizeable and long-established market on the Island, and is consequently of economic importance to many residents. The grain will be efficiently exported through our dock to ports around Europe, and is an encouraging boost to local agricultural businesses during otherwise volatile market conditions.” ENDS/
About PD Ports:
• PD Ports Limited is owned by Canadian based Brookfield. Brookfield is a global asset manager focused on property, renewable power and infrastructure assets, with over $100 billion of assets under management. PD Ports was bought by Brookfield in November 2009.
• PD Ports is a high performing specialist ports business offering a wide variety of supply chain services to improve customers’ international product and material movements into and out of – as well as within – the UK.
• PD Ports employs over 1200 members of staff, and generates an annual turnover of over £115 million from many UK locations.
• PD Ports operates throughout the UK from bases at many key ports and logistics centres.
• The 3 business interests of PD Ports are:
o Port Operations– is split into two business streams – bulks and unitised and includes:
? Teesport: one of the top 4 UK ports, with flows of containers, bulk traffics and finished cars, handling almost 40 million tonnes of throughput p.a.
? Humber & Small Ports: owners and/or operators of ports on the Humber estuary, Rivers Trent and Ouse, and at Medina Wharf, Isle of Wight. Service offerings include ships’ agency, chartering and stevedoring services.
? Logistics: PD Logistics offers warehousing, recycling and distribution services at UK locations throughout the North East, Humberside & East Anglia, including at Felixstowe.
Development plans for port operations include:
• The Northern Gateway Container Terminal: a major new deep sea container terminal planned at Teesport on the South side of the River Tees. The £300+ million development will have a capacity of 1.5 million TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) and is anticipated to deliver over 5,500 jobs to the Tees Valley, when fully operational. Circa 1,300 of the 5,500 new jobs have already been created through portcentric logistics operations in the past four years.
• Portcentric Logistics: a concept promoted by PD Ports for locating the storage and distribution of imported goods close to the point of arrival at a UK port. This concept avoids the slow handling and return of empty containers as well as eradicating unnecessary UK road mileage, which occurs when delivering to a traditional inland import centre, such as in the Midlands.
In 2006 ASDA WalMart opened a 360,000 sq ft import centre at Teesport and has saved more than 8 million road miles by adopting the portcentric concept. Adjacent to the ASDA facility, Tesco operates a purpose built 1.2 million sq ft import centre at Teesport, which opened in 2009. Tea and coffee specialists Taylors of Harrogate opened a purpose built warehouse facility at Teesport Commerce Park on the periphery of Teesport in 2010 to handle its UK imports.
o Conservancy – this includes:
? Management of river traffic for the ports of Tees and Hartlepool, ensuring safe navigation and maintaining the required channel depth.
o Property– this includes:
? Revenue and income from property and facilities owned by PD Ports and used by third party clients on long term leases.
? Land that is not utilised for operational purposes and offers potential for development.
? Port land at Hartlepool docks, which is highly attractive to the growing renewable energy sector, including offshore, windfarms, and biomass plants. PD Ports’ long term strategy is to further develop Hartlepool docks as a centre of excellence for the offshore support sector
Please visit www.pdports.co.uk
Initial press enquiries to:
Image Line Communications
Contact: Yvonne Mulder or Amanda Shoffman
[email protected]/[email protected]
020 7689 9009
www.imageline.co.uk
PD Ports contact:
Rebecca English,
Interim PR & Communications Manager (Maternity Cover)
01642 877026 or 07423 433 603
[email protected]
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