FREIGHT TRANSPORT
&
THE LINK TO HEYSHAM PORT

A Virtual Lancaster Report
25/2/05

"Measured in tonnage throughput terms, Heysham's trade over the last six years has doubled, largely due to the growing ferry and offshore trades and now accounts for some 4 million tonnes per annum.... Within 1.5 miles of the port over 90 acres of development land is available offering a wide range of industrial buildings." Heysham Port website.

We understood from Councillor Bryning at the public meeting on 17/2/05 that Lancaster City Council (LRCC) had looked into the possibility of some of the freight that is currently being transported to and from Heysham Port switching from road haulage to rail transport. They concluded that none of the freight currently transported by road could be carried by rail because of inadequate distribution networks. The possible exception was the cars en route to Ireland, currently taken on car transporters. However no further steps have been taken to promote such a change.

Obviously LRCC has no means of influencing private companies regarding the freight systems they use. Or indeed of checking with them if it is in fact true that no alternative to road haulage is viable.

Transport costs and viability depend on 3 variables:
Fuel: The price and availability of oil.
Distribution infrastructure: Access to collection and delivery points.
Labour: a competent and cooperative workforce.

The Price and availability of Oil
Experts vary in their opinions about the timing of 'Peak Oil Production'. This is the point when oil production in the world reaches its maximum, satisfying a demand which has constantly increased, particularly in the developed world, since records began. After the point of peak oil production, oilfields decline and produce less and less, at greater and greater cost, until they dry up. The general range of estimates say that peak is somewhere between now and 2015. However demand has risen not only because of increased use, but also because of stockpiling. The highest probability is that peak is occurring between now and 2010. At current levels of oil consumption, there are enough oil reserves to satisfy demand until about 2035. However it is ridiculous to assume that the situation will remain dormant until suddenly one day someone says 'sorry chaps, no more oil now.'

Most of the world's oil reserves are in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. If the situation had remained dormant, one day, they would be the only countries in the world with any oil left. They would have the only airforces, for example. Few other states could see this as a desirable outcome.

Most of the world's countries developed their centres of population and grew the cultural infrastructure of their societies prior to the wider introduction of the car. However most of the physical development of the US has taken place since the general adoption of the car, and the US economic and domestic culture depends on its availability. Millions of people live miles from the nearest shop, along highways that don't even have a pedestrian kerbside. Housing developments, 'exurbia', stretch uninterrupted by civic centres from horizon to horizon. Currently some 70 acres of US farmland is turning into housing developments every hour. Local public transport is practically non-existent.

America cannot honestly commit to Kyoto or enact any agreement to reduction in fossil fuels consumption without all these millions of people almost immediately experiencing new forms of deprivation. Oil prices will inevitably rise though. Currently the US is also in massive trade deficit to China. Reduction in oil availability is likely to lead to a reduction in this level of economic support, resulting in an economic slump. The discrepancy between the relative degrees of change experienced by the rich and the poor will inevitably lead to resentment. Many Americans are already moving into gated communities through fears of social instability.

What America needs is a technological miracle that will not only deliver a new, renewable form of fuel, but also the vehicles to run on it and millions of them, within the the next 12 years. Or an unbelievably radical social change that will transform the culture almost overnight into a continent-wide web of enlightened, community-driven highly co-operative support networks.
Instead they have the Bush administration.

The Bush administration answer to this problem is very simple. In these last years of peak oil production America is as strong as it can be - in the forseeable future it will weaken. So it has to make its move now to have the best chance to appropriate the world's remaining oil reserves, neutralise any potential military threat and thus become the 'last man standing.' To this end the US has had forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait since the Gulf war, it now occupies Iraq and also has interests in the Central Asian oil and gas fields and control of the access pipeline via Afghanistan. Iran is the obvious next step.

Even so, though defeat may be avoided, deprivation and social instability is still inevitable. And at this point, the issue of global warming and climate change and its potential impact on both the domestic and the world situations complicates things even further. So, like everyone else, I won't deal with it at this point.

There are parallels with the situation in the UK, if we recall the oil protests of September 2000, which gave the Labour Government its first major political test and forced government strategists to focus on the inevitable difficulties ahead. The answer to social unrest due to economic recession and deprivation is a traditional one. Increase social control legislation through the continually expressed fear of external threat, prey on weaker nations for their resources and motivate the population to accept deprivation as a patriotic necessity.

So, this is what is happening with the US. Obviously it can be argued that if they can't be diverted from this route it will be to the UK's advantage to be at least on the winning side in the current struggle for control of the world's remaining oil reserves (The human cost of this struggle is something else I'm not dealing with at this point.). However it becomes increasingly apparent that the world's superpowers are not states but the energy corporations that staff their governments.

It remains to be seen how US / Saudi-based corporate infrastructures will view the concept of honouring obligations to past allies.

UK oil reserves are coming to an end already. We depend heavily on out of town retail parks and supermarkets. About 85% of our goods are distributed by road. We do not have the option of cornering the world's oil reserves. And if we did, we would only be putting off an inevitable crisis. Energy conservation should now be a crucial factor in all planning decisions.

Distribution infrastructure:
Access to collection and delivery points.
It has to be said, the UK's best option, while we have the resources, is to concentrate on developing a transport and distribution infrastructure that can best get us through these changes. There is no doubt that at the present time the best option our technology has to hand is rail transport, both in terms of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Currently rail accounts for less than 15% of domestic goods movements. The tonnage now is about half of what it was in 1950 with a concurrent deterioration in goods depot facilities. Road haulage accounts for 85% with a 500% expansion in tonnage moved.

The Workforce
One reason for the change was trades union activity. The previous Labour government was plagued by a succession of strikes by rail workers, coal miners and dockworkers, many of whom saw Labour's accession to power as a stepping stone towards a society based on socialist principles. In fact society responded to this tactic by electing the Conservatives, who privatised the railways and the docks, incentivised road haulage companies (who employed mainly non-union labour) and closed the pits.

However where once it was the prerogative of the railworkers to 'hold the country to ransom', it then became the prerogative of the Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs). Many of these have become merely conduits via which taxpayers money disappears into the pockets of private shareholders, in return for which their companies deliver delayed, substandard, overpriced and inadequate services with shoddy and unsustainable infrastructures. The political systems that regulate these activites are toothless and compromised by networks of influence. Creating improvement in rail systems has become phenomenally expensive as cash is sucked into companies that simply do not have the organisational DNA to respond effectively.

Locally, the situation we are concerned with is the development of Heysham Port. In the early 60s the port's main cargo handled was oil. Domestic production reduced this business, however now that domestic production is coming to an end, handling imports could increase again in the short term, Heysham being a (privately owned) UK port with physical expansion potential. Access is a problem though. The rail distribution network is ill-equipped to cope and the motorway connection is poor due to increasing traffic congestion.

Politically, the path toward building a road link is simpler and more straightford than that of improving the rail network or reducing current traffic congestion. Other interests with political clout, local and national are also served - the road building lobby and all the other interests involved in ribbon development - out of town retail developers, housing developers and so on. So this becomes the path of least resistence. But these inevitably lead towards increased oil consumption. Also during the construction period traffic congestion will be worsened by construction vehicle movements. The nature of PFI means that once the state is committed to the project costs will increase and the taxpayer will have no option but to meet these.

Meanwhile as a country we will edge closer to instability and concommittant increased social control as the underlying problem of forseeable energy depletion is not addressed. Instead resources will be squandered on a road that in 20 years time few of us will be able to afford to drive on.

History tells us that prior to the first and second world wars UK governments failed to anticipate and prepare to meet the emerging threat. The costs of this failure were high. In the first world war men carrying sabres were sent repeatedly into machine-gun fire. In the second, initially only a handful of pilots and planes met the might of the Luftwaffe and the blitz. Now we face an uncertain future of resource depletion, climate change and continuous military engagement without a viable freight distribution infrasructure or transport system.

When you see a project that is clearly damaging to the interests of our community and our state being promoted, you have to ask, 'Who does profit?'.

Principle beneficiaries would be the The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (possibly due for takeover) and oil corporations from whom the UK will be importing oil at spiralling prices. Locally based companies might also experience some short-term advantage, particularly if they were able to secure road construction related projects.

Over the construction period however, congestion can be expected to increase. On a PFI project delays are inevitable and the project is likely to overrun the 5 years estimated for completion. By this time UK oil reserves will be finished and the price of fuel will be significantly increased. The local benefit of the road will be negligible, the environmental damage will be substantial, the cost will be in the region of £100 - 150 million and we will still have a serious transport problem.

We need local and central government to clean its house of the fifth column of corporate interests of dubious national affiliation and failed PFI projects, and develop a coherent transport and distribution network that can carry us, our businesses and our economy through the forseeable (and unforseeable) crises of the 21st century.

The UK needs rail spurs and goods depots in every industrial estate. We need light rail transport systems and flexible shuttles serving every community. We need local and accessible retail networks instead of distant supermarkets undermining local production with imported goods.

This not only needs considerable political will and cohesion to bring about, it also needs organisational competence and integrity. The only way forward is to make this a central issue in the forthcoming parliamentary election campaign and to support all local and national initiatives that lead to this end.

And to absolutely oppose those that sabotage our local and national welfare. Like the Northern Bypass project.

25/2/05