The Sunday Times - UK (2021-11-28)

8 The Sunday Times November 28, 2021

BUSINESS

L

ondoners strolling by the river

this month were treated to a

glimpse of the capital’s newest

vehicle. The Bravo Lima GB

took to the waters for the first

time in what its owners hope

will be the start of a new era for

Old Father Thames. The

9m-long boat is designed for

easy, roll-on roll-off delivery of

small crates. Its first job is to deliver medi-

cal supplies from Dartford in Kent to

Guy’s hospital near London Bridge.

“We’re quite excited about this,” said Ed

Livett, director of river freight operator

Livett’s, which owns the launch. “We’ve

earmarked the boat for this NHS project.

The idea is to prove the concept and then

potentially invest in a bigger version.”

Livett’s is not the only firm looking at

new ways of transporting goods. Brexit or

Covid-related driver shortages, clogged

roads and the need to reduce emissions

have inspired companies to innovate:

from rivers to canals, trains to magnetic

rails, the race is on to harness historic

infrastructure and new technologies. In

the jargon, it’s called a “modal shift” in

transport. But can the UK really breathe

new life into its creaking logistics sector?

Britain’s waterways, featured heavily

in the hit TV series Peaky Blinders — star-

ring Cillian Murphy, above right — formed

the backbone of the industrial revolution

before ceding ground to the railways.

In the past 60 years, both have lost out

to the roads. In the two years to 2020,

79 per cent of UK freight was moved by

road, against 13 per cent on water and just

8 per cent by rail. “Water can be a forgot-

ten transport mode... water-borne

freight hasn’t had the attention it might

deserve,” said Tim West of Wynns, a firm

that specialises in shifting huge loads,

such as parts of bridges or buildings, by

barge. However, there are signs that traf-

fic is bouncing back.

The Thames is the busiest of the UK’s

estimated 4,000 miles of inland water-

ways and offers perhaps the best chance

of boosting the total borne by water. Traf-

fic on the Thames rose 5 per cent between

2018 and 2019, mainly comprising deliv-

eries of construction materials to build-

ing sites, and boatloads of rubbish going

downriver. The Thames Tideway Tunnel

— London’s new super sewer project —

has used the river to shift five million ton-

nes of material so far — the equivalent of

an estimated 600,000 HGV journeys.

The river’s governing body, the Port of

London Authority (PLA) wants to grow

river traffic. Last year, DHL began parcel

deliveries on the Thames, a first for light

freight, and the PLA is now looking at the

possibility of using passenger piers to

take delivery of light goods. James Trim-

mer, its director of planning, said the

Thames was “a congestion-free highway

straight into the centre of London”.

“We can offer sustainability and relia-

bility, both of which are vital to the logis-

tics sector,” he said.

In the north, Peel Ports, owner of the

Manchester Ship Canal, is building the

£139 million Port Salford, which would

connect ships, road and rail. Stephen

Carr, group commercial director, esti-

mated that traffic on the canal, which can

take ships up to 182m long, has jumped

10 per cent this year. The warehouses

along the 36-mile route have also been

busy, with firms stocking up inventory

such as DIY goods, suitcases and home

furnishings amid global supply prob-

lems. “The buzz phrase of the moment

Cargo to

send? Let’s

off-road

With the HGV crisis hitting supply chains,

companies are finding new ways of getting

goods to market, Jon Yeomans reports

The waterways that formed the

backdrop for Peaky Blinders could be

key to solving logistics problems and

cutting emissions

seems to be ‘just in case’ rather than ‘just

in time’. People are taking the decision

right now to hold more stock,” said Carr.

Trade body the Commercial Boat

Operators Association believes water-

ways, such as the River Trent and the

inland port of Goole in Yorkshire, could

carry more freight. A number of Britain’s

historic canals are also classified as “com-

was no reason why “white van man deliv-

eries” could not be delivered by water. “It

seems short- sighted not to use all the

transport routes you’ve got,” he said. The

catch is having enough facilities to

unload goods; in London, the PLA has

had more than 40 wharves safeguarded

by mayoral decree to prevent the land

falling into the hands of developers itch-

ing to build luxury flats.

Boosting the amount of freight moved

by train, meanwhile, has become a big

goal of the sector’s biggest player, the

German-owned DB Cargo. “We want to

treble volumes by 2050 — as a company

and as an industry,” said DB Cargo’s chief

executive, Andrea Rossi. Network Rail

aspires to increasing rail freight but Rossi

wants “legally binding targets for modal

shift from road to rail”.

Tesco recently outlined an ambition to

up its rail freight by 38 per cent by the end

of the year, and Lidl GB’s chief executive,

Christian Härtnagel, said the retailer had

resorted to trains to tackle disruption in

its supply chain. Charles Hammond, boss

of Forth Ports, owner of the giant Tilbury

docks on the Thames, said shippers were

making use of new rail facilities at the

port. “Our rail traffic has increased ten-

fold this year alone and we expect annual

growth to continue to 2030,” he said.

Rail freight has historically been

shunted to one side to make way for pas-

senger services, forcing it to run at night.

“It’s not like people haven’t looked at this

before,” said former Sainsbury’s boss Jus-

tin King. “It’s just the reality is that rail is

very limited. Because of the capacity

problem, you can’t move things predicta-

bly and at speed.” Rossi agreed but said

the UK could follow mainland Europe’s

example: it has ambitious plans to raise

the proportion of freight shifted by rail to

30 per cent by 2030, from 18 per cent now.

Longer term, the drive for fast, reliable

and clean deliveries might require all-

new infrastructure. Wembley-based Mag-

way has developed a driverless delivery

system that would shoot boxes of goods

along tunnels via magnetic levitation.

Co-founder Rupert Cruise described the

system as running “magnetic surf-

boards” on top of a “magnetic wave”.

“There’s no engine, no fuel and no bat-

teries on board our vehicle,” he said.

The Magway system would require

hundreds of miles of narrow tunnels

to be dug to work at scale; Cruise

compared these to laying gas or water

pipes. Ultimately Magway’s pipes

would go from distribution centres to

smaller hubs, where parcels would be

delivered “the last mile” by van or bike.

Cruise’s dreams have one thing in

common with the backers of river and

rail: the need to tackle the dominance of

the roads. “Most cities have been adapted

around the motor vehicle,” he said. “Now

people can design cities around... mod-

ern forms of delivery.”

Deliveries can be

done by water. You

should use all the

transport routes

you’ve got

mercial” waterways, although there is

nothing to stop properly licensed boats

using leisure canals for deliveries.

Middlesex-based Wood, Hall & Hew-

ard operates boats across the south-

east. It recently delivered materials

to a giant building project at King’s

Cross via the Regent’s Canal. Gerry

Heward, an adviser to the firm, said there

ANTHONY DEVLIN/GETTY IMAGES