New port security regulations are proposed for the ports of Great Yarmouth, Rosyth, and Tyne.
Visit the DfT website for the consultation in full which closes on September 20.
As background, the Port Security Regulations came into force in the UK in September 2009, as a result of European Union regulations of 2005, themselves prompted by the 9-11 terrorism. The 2009 regulations required the main UK ports to set up Port Security Authorities (PSAs). Each PSA has to meet at least twice a year and had to carry out a port security risk assessment (PSRA). That PSRA identified any places which might require further security and mitigation measures. The authority also had to develop and keep a port security plan (PSP). According to the Government, it’s all to ‘establish formal arrangements to ensure security coordination across the wider port area’. Forth Ports have commented that it would cost £20,000 to produce the Port Security Plan (20 days x £1000 per day, a consultant’s rate).
As for the (on a map, not a fenced) boundary of the ports covered by the security plans, at Great Yarmouth it runs from Gorleston up to River Yare to Great Yarmouth; at Rosyth it covers the dockyard; and on the Tyne the secured area covers a dozen quays from Newcastle and the Swan Hunter yard to North Shields.
The extra work by port security officers (estimated to have an annual salary of £57,000 a year), security assessments and plans are estimated to cost 20 ports – Barrow, Cardiff, Coleraine, Cromarty Firth, Felixstowe/Harwich, Fowey, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich, Londonderry, Medway, Methil, Oban, Peterhead, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Rosyth , Shoreham, Thames, Troon and Tyne – some £4.6m over ten years. Why the work? According to the consultation document: “In the UK 95 per cent by volume and 77pc by value of international trade is carried in ships and 7pc of domestic freight tonnage moves by water. In addition, 15pc of UK international passenger movements are by sea and two thirds of passenger vehicles between the UK and other countries go by sea. This makes the UK port industry an important part of the UK economy, as well as an essential node between other modes of transportation. A serious security incident involving the maritime transport system could therefore have impacts that fall beyond the immediate risks and consequences faced by port owners.” According to the Department for Transport (DfT), most of the ports already have Port Security Committees (PSC) in place.
About 40 ports will eventually be subject to the security regulations; so far eight ‘Designation Orders’ have been made; the first in 2010 at Avonmouth, Bristol (which found it took five working days to produce its security plan); last year at Dover, Aberdeen, Grangemouth, Portland, Tees and Hartlepool, and Workington; and the one for the Port of Milford Haven came into force in May 2013. The Government said that this ‘user pays’ approach for ports is consistent with previously adopted security methods in the maritime passenger sector, the aviation industry and the Channel Tunnel.
