Belfast Harbour Commissioners have urged members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to assess all options before deciding the future of Belfast port.
The port debate began in December 1997, when the Commissioners urged the transfer of the port into private ownership through a public flotation on the London Stock Exchange. During a question-and-answer session last week with the Assembly's regional development committee at Stormont, Commissioners Frank Cushnahan and Gordon Irwin said they were still unclear on government policy with regard to the state-owned port.
Four basic options have been examined:
a public/private partnership as originally proposed by Belfast Harbour Commissioners.
a partial sell-off, retaining property interests in the public sector, as suggested by the Assembly ad-hoc committee.
an enhanced public/private partnership proposal.
retention of trust port status but with enhanced powers.
The original proposal by the Harbour Commissioners was based on the government retaining a golden share, but the legality of this procedure has been questioned by the European Commission. Under the terms of the initiative put forward by Chancellor Gordon Brown, some £70 million sterling of the proceeds from any sale would be used for a range of road improvement schemes, including proposed flyovers on the Westlink section of the M1 motorway, close to the city centre, with any cash raised over and above that ceiling being clawed back by the Treasury. But the ad-hoc committee and the Commissioners have opposed this, saying that the complete proceeds should be used for the benefit of the people of Northern Ireland.
"We are concerned," they said, "that the decision on the way forward for the port could be influenced by an understandable desire to bring forward an option designed to ensure that the sale proceeds do not exceed the Treasury's £70 million cap. This would inevitably be an option which would centre on the sale of the port without any non-port land." The commissioners said such an option is not recommended by either PricewaterhouseCoopers, the economic advisers to the Department of Regional Development (DRD), or by Arthur Andersen, corporate finance advisers to the commissioners, because such a flotation would have limited appeal to investors. "Belfast Harbour Commissioners would not consider such an option to be in the interests of the port or the Northern Ireland economy," said the submission. The Commissioners favour the public/private partnership with a "golden share" being retained by government as the best way to commercially develop the port and protect the public interest. But meanwhile the DRD has put forward another option for consideration - that of a restructured trust port with extended powers.
At last week's meeting, Ulster Unionist MLA, Mr Alan McFarland asked if the Harbour Commissioners had looked at the trust port option during the five years they spent choosing and developing the public/private partnership option. Mr McFarland said that restructuring would mean 850 acres of non-port land passing from the Harbour Commissioners to other ownership.
Regional Development Minister Peter Robinson has said that he wants to finalise plans by the autumn. He said that the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Port was potentially damaging to the Harbour's continued development.
Another factor which may influence the final decision is the effect it would have on Northern Ireland's other major ports, at Larne, Derry, and Warrenpoint. There are fears that they could be damaged by the creation of a public-private partnership (PPP).
A report commissioned by Belfast Harbour Commissioners, which examined the PPP proposal, said that it would not in itself have any effect on the other ports, although the trend towards a concentration of traffic at larger ports would continue. The report said that Larne should maintain market share and that traffic levels should increase as the ro-ro market continues to grow.
It predicted that Derry would maintain existing traffic levels and was likely to experience an increase in business over the next five years, while Warrenpoint would continue to face pressure from ports in the Republic.
The report's conclusion contradicted an earlier finding by ERM Economics, a company which has acted as adviser to the Department of the Environment and to Warrenpoint Harbour Authority on port improvement proposals. ERM predicted that Warrenpoint would lose 25 per cent of its trade to a privatised Port of Belfast over a 10-year period, while Derry was likely to lose 5 per cent of its business.
