As the number of would-be migrants awaiting their chance to catch a ride across the Channel to the UK rises, so does their desperation and thus the level of violence faced by drivers of the lorries that are the migrants’ preferred mode of transport.
The clear and obvious advantage of transporting goods by what is the shortest and usually fastest route between France and England – Calais to Dover – is somewhat diminished, it would seem.
Lorry drivers and haulage companies are in the firing line and, not unreasonably, object to the violence, damage to trucks and cargo, and the potential fines imposed for having allowed stowaways in their lorries.
Added to that are the frustrations and delays resulting from sitting in queues of parked lorries as Kent police activate Operation Stack, the police’s method of dealing with the huge volume of lorries that accumulate with each cross-Channel delay.
Not surprisingly, some HGV drivers are now demanding higher payments for the Dover-Calais run.
The Freight Transport Association, which represents the interests of haulage and shipping companies, says last summer’s delays cost the freight industry £750,000 per day and has warned that the UK supply chain is in danger of collapsing.
The problems, a feature throughout last summer, were particularly acute in September. According to the BSI’s security risk index for the supply chain, the combination of strikes and migrant activity near the port and Channel Tunnel entrance in Calais resulted in losses of about $1bn (£687m) for the UK economy that month. “Losses due to contamination of cargo shipments by stowaways were particularly serious for the pharmaceutical and food industries, with BSI recording one lost shipment of pharmaceuticals valued at $3.9m,” the BSI report states.
The index says that delays and stoppages in Calais cost UK shippers an estimated $1.2m and Dutch shippers about $545,000 each day.
Similarly, the number of rail freight trains using the Channel Tunnel dropped by 33% in the third quarter of 2015 because of migrant activity around SNCF’s (France’s national railway operator) Calais-Frethun yard, which forced the suspension of overnight services, according to Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel Group.
The true cost
Research by Kent County Council puts the cost to the Kent and Medway economy of Operation Stack at about £1.45m per day, based on delays to passenger journey times (£980,000 per day), reduced visitor numbers (£285,000 per day) and costs to the road haulage industry (£180,000 per day cost to the Kent-based industry).
Increases in direct costs, alongside the cost of delays and unpredictability, could start to filter up the supply chain and, if the problems continue unchecked, this might make other routes more attractive, ultimately affecting logistics property.
The Dover-Calais route does benefit from the not inconsiderable momentum of the £89bn worth of goods that pass through Calais every year. The infrastructure involved in this process would make changing routes no small undertaking.
“It’s not as if you can just switch the GPS to a new port,” says the FTA’s Brussels-based EU affairs manager, Chris Yarsley. “A whole host of other things would have to change at the same time.”
“We haven’t had anybody that’s been part of one of our projects saying that they are not coming here because of that. We know it causes disruption, but we had three large logistics successes last year,” says Locate in Kent’s director of marketing and research, Mandy Bearne, referring to commitments by Asda, Lidl and Aldi to distribution buildings totalling 900,000 sq ft.
“The whole point is that anybody shipping goods to Europe, unless they go out through routes further up the country, is going to have to go through Dover anyway. Unfortunately, by and large, they are going to have to put up with it,” says Bearne.
And for the time being, they are putting up with it. Eurotunnel Group’s shuttle service revenues for 2015 were up by 5% to €579.7m and truck shuttle traffic increased by 3% to nearly 1.5m trucks transported. Meanwhile, P&O Ferries carried more freight between Dover and Calais in 2015 than in any previous year in its modern history, the company says, having transported more than 1.3m units of freight during the year – a 22% year-on-year increase.
But other routes and modes of transport have emerged. Dover-based Priority Freight, which describes itself as a “provider of time-critical logistics solutions”, reported a 300% increase in airfreight bookings during 2015. Although the company acknowledged that transporting freight by air was costly, for some automotive manufacturers it was worth it to keep production moving.
Brittany Ferries has also seen an opportunity and has chartered a freight-only vessel to carry mainly unaccompanied lorry trailers between Poole and Bilbao, northern Spain. The ship, Pelican, has capacity for about 100 unaccompanied trailers and 12 drivers, and began service last month, operating two round-trips per week.
“The reality is that all freight routes across the Channel last year saw growth, even those using so-called short sea routes – Dover to Calais, for example,” a company spokesman says. “Underlying our move to charter a new vessel for the UK-Spanish market is the rising demand for cross-channel freight.
“However, [the rising demand] is particularly prevalent across the western Channel, where Brittany Ferries operates. So there is no doubt we have seen a significant shift in terms of freight operators looking for an alternative to short sea routes. It is not an enormous shift, but it is nonetheless significant.”
Dover and Calais fight back
Plans for both the harbours of Dover and Calais could further reinforce the hold that the Dover-to-Calais route has on cross-Channel traffic.
While the Port of Dover has plans for the improvement of both its eastern and western docks, Calais is planning a €675m extension to its port area.
In a project led by contractor Bouygues and designed by Amsterdam-based consultant Arcadis – its fee alone is €20m (£15.4m) – the plan includes a new 3.3km breakwater and three ferry piers on a 44ha site.
Meanwhile, an agreement between German transport company CargoBeamer and a French property developer, Lyon-based DCB International, seems likely to kick off the 50ha first phase of the long-awaited 160ha Calais Premier logistics project.
The two companies have established a joint subsidiary that will develop an intermodal facility at Calais Premier drawing in, it is hoped, other logistics companies.
Leipzig-based CargoBeamer has developed its own system for carrying unaccompanied HGV trailers on special rail wagons.
All types of lorry trailers can be received and loaded horizontally, without modification.
CargoBeamer already operates between Saarland and Wolfsburg in Germany for Volkswagen Logistics, and a second route is planned between North Rhine-Westphalia and northern Italy, running through the Gotthard Tunnel.
