SOUTHAMPTON is attempting to block Liverpool’s Pier Head from being allowed to become a start and finish base for cruise liners.
A Department for Transport consultation on whether to relax rules to allow a full “turnaround” facility to be created at Liverpool’s Cruise Liner Terminal ends today.
The DfT has to give its approval because of a £9m grant from the European Union that helped fund the £20m terminal.
But Associated British Ports, which owns Southampton, believes it would amount to unfair help that would “distort” competition in the port sector.
It has written to the DfT and shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, who has lobbied for Liverpool, to protest at the proposal.
But last night Mr Grayling, who is also the Conservative spokesman for Merseyside, said he did not think the two locations were in competition, and he hoped the DfT would find in Liverpool’s favour.
Almost 300 cruise liners call at Southampton a year, whereas Liverpool’s terminal will only see 16 this year.
The row comes as a council study reveals the terminal will have brought in £13.6m to the local economy in its first two full years of operation, 2008 and 2009.
In total, 55 ships will have visited by the end of the year, 29 cruise vessels and 26 from the Royal Navy.
Passengers and crew’s spending accounts for £2m, while the rest of the economic impact comes from money spent by the 370,000 spectators estimated to have turned out to see visiting ships.
A council report reveals the terminal is currently making a £250,000-a-year loss for the city council.
But it adds: “Although it continues to operate at a net loss, this is counterbalanced by the economic and publicity benefits to the city. “
The issue of upgrading Liverpool’s Cruise Liner Terminal follows criticism over the current facilities for voyages starting or ending their journeys in Liverpool.
As there are no baggage handling facilities, Customs, or immigration at the Cruise Liner Terminal, voyages starting or ending in the city have to use Langton terminal, in Bootle, which is in a heavily industrialised area.
The new terminal is more visitor-friendly, in the shadow of the historic Three Graces.
Earlier in the summer, the Daily Post reported how the council had made an official bid to the DfT for the Cruise Liner Terminal to be used as a “turnaround facility”.
Officials visited the terminal in June to inspect it, and further meetings have also been held.
