Annual Review 2019

Over the past 12 months ABP has continued to invest in new infrastructure, facilities and equipment to help our customers’ businesses grow, bringing ABP’s total investment since 2016 to £250 million. This includes £50 million of investment in Southampton, the UK’s number one export port, to serve the automotive and cruise industries. The upgrade to the port’s Ocean Terminal will help maintain Southampton’s status as

Europe’s leading cruise turnaround port, whilst the completion of our eighth multi-deck car storage facility later this year will keep Southampton in pole position for automotive. Stage one of the project was completed in May providing storage space for an additional 1,000 vehicles, and was marked in an event attended by His Excellency Mr Robert Wood Johnson, United States Ambassador to the UK.

ABP supports 119,000 jobs and contributes £7.5 billion to the UK economy every year, handling around £150 billion of trade. Our ports are an essential part of the supply chain in key industries throughout the country. 11,700 jobs in car manufacturing in the West Midlands alone are supported by the Port of Southampton, the UK’s number one automotive and export port.

Elsewhere around ABP’s ports we are looking to bring forward projects, both large and small, which promise transformational benefits for the economy both at local and national level.

Across all our locations, we are passionate about protecting the environment and working more sustainably. Our absolute carbon footprint has decreased more than 21% since 2014, with some ports achieving reduction rates in excess of 40%. Across the group, ABP continues to deliver major investment in solar and wind generation to maximise the use of renewables for powering our business.

Last year, our installed capacity for renewable generation reached 18.3MWp (Megawatt Peak) generating 16.7GWh during the year, enough to power around 4,300 average UK homes for a year. It is pleasing to note that we used around 10GWh of this power for our own and our tenants’ operations and provided around 6.7GWh of green energy to the national grid, equivalent to the total electricity requirement for all of our short sea operations for a full year.

This year, we have maintained our great work with local communities and worthy causes. Amongst many highlights, our team on the Humber has sponsored the Humber Coastal Half Marathon for the third year in a row. The race takes place in September and is growing in popularity with 2,500 runners expected this year.

Healthy activities like running were also encouraged by other teams within ABP, with our South Wales ports once again sponsoring the ABP Newport Wales Marathon and 5K and continued sponsorship of the ABP Southampton Marathon, with additional donations from the Southampton team supporting a range of worthy local causes.

Since 2017, the number of shipping services connecting Hull and Immingham to ports on the Continent has increased by over 30% with new services from Amsterdam and Ghent plus the introduction of deep-sea feeder services into the Port of Hull.

A comparative analysis of short sea import and export routes to and from the UK conducted by the University of Hull Logistics Institute has demonstrated the significant time, distance and environmental benefits which can be achieved by choosing the ports of Hull and Immingham instead of the Port of Dover, as well as other ports located on the East Coast.