Port plans £200m docks expansion

The docks would be able to handle 850,000 containers a year

Ambitious plans to build new £200m deep-water docks at Avonmouth in Bristol have been unveiled.

The new 100-acre site, next to the existing docks, could lead to hundreds of thousands of cargo containers passing through the port each year.

Under the proposals, which need planning permission, an area of the foreshore will be reclaimed.

A Bristol Port Company spokesman said: "Ships are getting bigger. We need to be ready for the next generation."

Currently, container shipping forms just six per cent of the firm's total operations at Avonmouth and the nearby Royal Portbury docks.

'Environmental benefit'

The 2,500-acre site, which stretches across the river mouth, processes 150,000 containers each year.

If the expansion gets the go-ahead, this will rise to 850,000 containers a year.

The Bristol Port Company, which operates both sites, believes Avonmouth's location close to the M5 and M4 and good rail connections means it is well-placed to handle more containers.

"It would be much easier for us to ship a load on containers, which are (currently) coming through the South East, through Bristol, both from an economic and environmental point of view," the spokesman said.

The new deep-water dock will be built on the reclaimed foreshore and a disused oil terminal.

The Bristol Port Company is currently looking for client companies for the site and has yet to submit a formal planning application.

If the proposals get the go-ahead, it will take a further three years for the new docks to be built.

The firm estimates the site could be operating as early as 2009.