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Freeports: Good progress but more is needed

[ March 19, 2024   //   ]

Ports are often caught up in planning and regulatory challenges and quicker and faster decisions are needed, UK Major Ports Group chief executive Geraint Evans told a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Maritime and Ports Group on 18 March.

At the session, entitled: ‘Freeports: what’s been delivered?’ he said that freeports were full of potential but it was important to make sure that this was exploited and that they would drive economic development.

The meeting was also told that the Government was minded to hold an enquiry into freeports in the near future.

Chief executive of Humber Freeport, Simon Green, told the gathering that good progress was being made in the Humber and that Government funding had been used to develop training facilities and high tech laboratories for the green energy sector. The £1bn of investment attracted since June 2023 had been used to create 550 jobs and this had led to a strong degree of support in the region as the freeport could be seen to be developing real, good quality jobs in a relatively short timeframe.

One issue with freeports he said, that much of the investment they tended to attract was long term and it could be some time before local people actually got to see the benefits in terms of job creation and expansion of the local economy.

Steve Edwards, commercial director of Port of Milford Haven, part of the Celtic Freeport in Wales – where the process to set up freeports had started somewhat later than in England – said that good progress was also being made. Before the process started, few people in Wales even knew what a freeport was, but now there was strong interest from global companies, many of whom might not have considered investing in the region without freeport status.

All speakers agreed that there was now good cross-party support for the freeport concept. When the freeports was first unveiled by then Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak a few days, some in the Labour party and others saw them as offering tax breaks to wealthy businesses but now they are seen as instrumental in developing the green economy and energy transition.

Asked by British Ports Association chief executive e Richard Ballantyne whether more freeports should be designated, the consensus among the speakers was that while might increase the total amount of inward investment into the UK as a whole, it might also dilute investment in areas that needed it most.

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