The British ports ask a simplification for the decisional processes of planning and in order to face after Brexit



Associations United Kingdom Major Ports Group (UKMPG) and British Ports Association (BPA), that they represent the great part of the terminalisti and harbour groups that operate in the ports of the United Kingdom, have proposed a plan of reforms in ten points so that the British ports can face the next phase to the escape of the United Kingdom from the European Union guaranteeing the efficiency of the commercial exchanges of the nation with foreign country. If in the United Kingdom many main national ports are of private property, with the exception of almost the totality of the ports of the other States of the EU that are of public property, however the two associations consider that from public part they can be introduced modifications to the norms in order to guarantee and to increase the competitiveness of the British ports and in order to assure and to increase the investments in the harbour field, with positive repercussions on the occupation and the pr0sperity of the coastal communities.

"Our plan - the managing director of the UKMPG, Tim Morris has explained - is centralized on ten pragmatic, practical and concrete modalities through which the government it could create a better atmosphere for the ports, the commercial exchanges and the investments, helping not only the ports but the coastal communities of entire Great Britain. In sight of the challenges and the opportunities that after Brexit anticipate - it has emphasized Morris - we invite the ministers to examine these proposals carefully".

UKMPG and BPA in the first place propose to widen the scope of the concessions "Permitted Development Rights", in order to accelerate and to simplify the investments being increased the rapidity of the decisional processes, and to modify the definition of "operational land" including the modern types to you of harbour activities so that it comprises all the areas used from the multimodali ports, recognizing therefore that the ports are not limited to the simple activity of transfer of cargos from the ships to earth but they constitute primary knots of the logistic chains, the productive activities and offer an immense range of services.

In topic of town-planning and construction planning, the two associations propose for the ports a simplification of the planning procedures and of the decisional processes let alone to clarify the responsibilities of the marine authorities and the local institutions, simplification that UKMPG and BPA consider can be realized with the institution of an only authority that takes care of these topics.

Between the proposals of UKMPG and BPA there is also a review of the norms in environmental matters with the scope to create a system that - second the two associations - could be in favor of the commercial exchanges and meanwhile to assure high standards of protection of the atmosphere, system that - for UKMPG and BPA - would have to be stiff to favor innovative approaches rather than the current approach to the prescription of environmental character who the two associations define "hard-shell".