A PROUD HISTORY, A BRILLIANT FUTURE
General, 17 Jun 2010
A PROUD HISTORY, A BRILLIANT FUTURE
Business leaders from some of Merseyside's foremost Maritime Sector companies gathered together last week to hear sector representative organisation Mersey Maritime set out its plans for the future.
Over 100 people attended the two hour summit meeting at the Leverhulme Hotel in Port Sunlight last Thursday evening (June 10, 2010), in which Mersey Maritime - the most successful cluster organisations of its kind in the UK - highlighted key milestones from its first seven years, and presented a blueprint for moving forward.
Mersey Maritime is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with a £450,000 grant, matched-funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and other partners with £450,000. The project will create and deliver a sector development programme for the Maritime industry on Merseyside that will support productivity, business growth and job creation. This will therefore, help enhance the competitiveness of the sub-region both nationally and internationally.
Ian Higby, Chairman of Mersey Maritime and Managing Director of Atlantic Container Line, opened proceedings with a speech that set the mood for the evening:
"We are here tonight to celebrate the success that has come from working together as a maritime community - success that has seen us strengthen our profile, attract investment, grow and improve our businesses, create and safeguard jobs, increase profitability and improve our road, rail and port infrastructure."
He recalled that when Mersey Maritime was set up in 2003, he had described it as a 'lifetime commitment' saying: "Working on and around our river, with its incredible maritime heritage, we knew we were standing on the shoulders of giants.
"But we also knew that some things had not changed - the Mersey remains a great economic engine and our modern maritime businesses stand for excellence, innovation, quality service and sound leadership in the way that they always did."
Mr Higby went on to highlight the many achievements of the sector on Merseyside over the past seven years. These include over £150 million of inward investment into the sector during Mersey Maritime's lifetime, the building of the new cruise terminal, the spectacular renaissance of the Cammell Laird shipyard and the development of the Manchester Ship Canal and 3MG [Stobart's muliti-modal gateway development in Halton].
He added:
"During the last seven years Mersey Maritime has directly supported 500 businesses and helped to create or protect 3000 jobs.
"This year alone, over 500 people from almost 200 different organisations have attended industry networking events and collaborative meetings organised by Mersey Maritime. We have seen substantial inward investment from the likes of Maersk, CMA CGM and the Liverpool Fresh Produce Terminal, who have elected to make Merseyside the place to grow their businesses."
The sector had also faced significant challenges during this time, Mr Higby told the audience, most recently through the unfair imposition by the previous Labour Government of backdated rates bills on port based businesses, which in some cases amounted to millions of pounds. One of Mersey Maritime's most recent successes, he said, had been its protracted and high profile lobbying campaign to reverse government policy on the collection of these bills, which had put a number of companies out of business and threatened many more.
News of a moratorium on the collection of backdated port rates bills had been announced by the new coalition government the previous week, said Mr Higby, marking the first step towards their now widely expected cancellation and a real turning point for the 70 affected businesses on Merseyside whose livelihoods it had threatened to destroy.
Keynote speaker for the evening, Stephen Carr, Head of Business Development for Peel Ports Mersey, spoke about Peel's plans for the Port of Liverpool and the Manchester Ship Canal. The Mersey Ports, he said, enjoyed an enviably central location in the UK and had far lower onward distribution costs compared to the south coast ports, due to their close proximity to manufacturers and customers. They could also demonstrate a significantly lower carbon footprint as a result.
Mr Carr said: "Over the last few years, port-centric distribution has become a buzz-word within logistics circles, but its impact has been limited by the distance of the ports from the consumers.
"Liverpool is uniquely placed to deliver additional value given its close proximity to the population. The summit demonstrated the huge potential available to all members of the maritime sector in the Merseyside region by tapping into this natural geographic advantage."
The final presentation of the evening was given by Jim Teasdale, Chief Executive of Mersey Maritime Group.
In his speech, Mr Teasdale, who in 2007 steered Mersey Maritime through a merger with the then Laird Foundation in order to expand and strengthen the range of services both organisations could offer, outlined his blueprint for the future of the sector on Merseyside, and of Mersey Maritime as the voice of the sector's 1700 companies.
Drawing on the results of many months of in-depth discussion and feedback with members and partners, Mr Teasdale said that while the specifics of what employers wanted of Mersey Maritime in 2010 may have changed, the feedback reflected much the same broad agenda as in 2003.
"This confirms very clearly," he said, "that the work we do for the sector is in line with what the industry wants and needs."
He said that Mersey Maritime would concentrate its efforts and resources on meeting employer demand in five main areas: Information and Knowledge Sharing; Communications and News Updates; Networking; Providing Access to Funding and Skills Brokerage and Skills Delivery, and outlined specific actions Mersey Maritime would take in order to deliver them.
Our legacy," said Mr Teasdale, "will be that the Maritime Sector on Merseyside is strong, Mersey Maritime is strong .....and Mersey Maritime Group is strong. The Mersey is a key global trading centre and together we can make that future happen."
The summit meeting was followed by a celebration dinner in the hotel's excellent Paesano restaurant.
End.
Issued on: 17 June 2010
Issued by: Mersey Maritime Limited, Monks Ferry, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH41 5LH
Contact: Annette Parker, Communications Manager 0151 647 4747.
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