By John Hinton, Elected Dryport Representative, Babergh District Council

THIS month, as we welcome colleagues from Sweden, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Scotland to the Haven Gateway for the Dryport annual conference, we are going to get political. That’s political with a small ‘p’, by the way!

As politicians, our communities depend on the private sector to invest in job creation through port developments and associated logistics, warehousing and transport projects; but the private sector in turn depends on us politicians to facilitate and encourage such investments, through the planning policy we formulate, the way in which we implement it, and our general support.

On day one of the Dryport conference, we will be encouraging politicians from all of the Dryport partners’ areas to exchange ideas; to describe what they operate or don’t operate, and why; to talk about the problems they have come across and how they got over them; to share their views on port and dryport projects and freight issues.

It’s often by sharing experiences that we find common, or similar, problems. We hope to find ourselves sharing ideas and methods for resolving those problems.

Our own message or advice to fellow politicians would concern the essential nature of planning ahead. Annual container handling capacity at the Haven Ports is set to increase to 8 million teu through major developments at Felixstowe and Harwich. That total may seem a long way off, but we need to be thinking now about the supporting infrastructure – roads, rail, warehousing and logistics areas.

We all know that major infrastructure projects are not only very expensive but also take a long time to implement. If we don’t start planning now, then in the long term business, and the national and local economy, could suffer, simply because of bottlenecks.

As joint Dryport partners, with the Haven Gateway, Babergh District Council has gained much valuable insight into freight and logistics planning. The funding we have gained through Dryport has helped us to move ahead with some important projects; including carrying out a feasibility study and research into the development of a major brownfield site at Brantham, for logistics and shipping-related activities.

We have also used Dryport funding for exploratory work on the redundant sugar beet site just off the A14 at Sproughton – this designated employment site is superbly located and would be ideal for logistics and warehousing operations.

Part of the Dryport conference will be given over to project partner IAW (the University of Bremen’s Institute of Labour and Economy), who will be presenting a report entitled ‘Governance and Conflict Resolution in Dryport Planning’, based on a series of case studies carried out over the past year.

Sometimes, commercial expectations can be a lot bigger than the actual ‘deliverability’ of a project. Any major investment has to be practical and achievable. We must make sure that politicians are not looking through rose-coloured glasses – it’s vital to consider what has gone right and, most importantly, what has gone wrong in similar projects!

In summary, local politicians have a key role to play in working with private sector partners to help them deliver jobs and a sustainable and diversified subregional economy. The Dryport conference, hosted by Babergh and the Haven Gateway, will help to develop  that partnership between local councils and the wealth-creating private sector.