Manchester Ship Canal

Stretching from the River Mersey to the heart of Greater Manchester, the Manchester Ship Canal is benefiting from the growing volume of freight removed from overcrowded roads and loaded onto shuttle barges shunting between the Port of Liverpool and berths and wharfs on the canal.

Peel Holdings now have planning permission for the multi-million pound development of Port Salford, transforming a 70 hectare brownfield site into a bustling, vibrant hub for road, rail and waterborne freight.

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Peel Ports' Liverpool-Manchester Shuttle plies up and down the River Mersey and Ship Canal several times a week carrying containers of imports and exports which would otherwise be transported by truck, adding to congestion on Britain's roads. The shuttle calls at Ellesmere Port and Irlam Wharf, but has also made calls to Salford Quays with containers for the BBC's Media City project.

The pusher tug and barge capable of carrying up to 160 20ft containers, makes the 44 mile run with a range of cargoes including New World wines shipped into Britain by Tesco Supermarkets. Export cargoes and repatriated empty containers are carried on the return sailings.

Standing at the gateway to the 36 mile long Ship Canal are Eastham Locks which include direct access from the River Mersey to the Queen Elizabeth 11 (QE11) Dock, specially designed to handle petroleum products, chemicals, edible oils and other bulk liquids.

The Ship Canal is at the heart of Shell UK's refinery and distribution network. Shell's main facility is the Stanlow Refinery but in partnership with Nynas Petroleum, it also operates Eastham Refinery Ltd, which is served by QE11 Dock. ERL manufactures a range of specially designed products including long-lasting asphalts for today's roads.

Close to the entrance of the Ship Canal is Eastham Terminal where NuStar Terminal Limited operates an independent bulk liquid storage facility. Other companies with bulk liquid facilities close to the QE11 Dock include Ineos Chlor, Europe's largest PVC manufacturer, Kemira, a chemical group of four businesses and Dynea, one of the world's leading producers of industrial adhesives. NuStar's tanks can be accessed from berths in the QEII Dock and the Sheerlegs Berth, just inside Eastham Locks on the Ship Canal.

Manisty Wharf handles between 800,000 and a million tonnes of power station coal a year, transhipped from Peel Ports' Scottish deepwater port of Hunterston.

Ellesmere Port Docks have benefited from a £1 million investment by Quality Freight (UK) in a Liebherr 150 mobile harbour crane which can handle 700 tonnes of cargo an hour. Quality Freight subsidiary Edward Nicholson, is responsible for stevedoring, 300,000 sq ft of canal-side warehousing and day to day operations at Ellesmere Port.

The glass recycling operation of Recresco at Ellesmere Port has state of the art equipment to sort glass collected in bottle banks all over the country for remelting into containers and crushing for further processing into other products. Glass cullet is regularly imported and exported through adjacent port facilities.

Ellesmere Port and the Manchester Ship Canal play a vital role in the transportation and distribution system of Shell UK, which produces around 16 per cent of Britain's petrol and diesel. From its refinery at Stanlow, Shell processes some 11 million tonnes of crude oil (discharged at the Port of Liverpool's Tranmere Oil Terminal), and moves around 20% of its output on the Canal.

Shell Chemicals shares the Stanlow site and produces petrochemicals vital to such end products as mobile phones, adhesive tape, computers, detergents and medicines. The petrochemicals are despatched by road, pipeline - and waterway.

GrowHow UK and Innospec also have berths in the Stanlow/Ince area adjacent to their production sites.

Runcorn Saltworks, operated by Salt Union Ltd, uses a berth to bulk load salt produced at its Canal-side evaporation plant.

Next to Runcorn Saltworks is Runcorn Layby, a deepwater berth of 168 metres, is particularly suitable for loading and discharging approved bulk liquids and petroleum products and supplies companies such as Ineos ChlorVinyls.

Significant investment by Peel Ports has added to the specialisation of Runcorn Docks which has seen a steady increase in traffic by companies such as Brunner Mond, part of the Tata Group. The company exports soda ash from a new purpose built facility which includes a 30,000 sq ft shed and automated delivery procedures.

Francis Flower provide storage, manufacturing and distribution of limestone powder products at Runcorn.

With two facilities on the Ship Canal, Swedish company Feralco is a key supplier to Britain's water utility companies and plays an important role in the provision of potable water to major UK cities including Liverpool.

Other companies exploiting the docks' ideal location include Merseyside Logistics, North Cape Minerals, Prince Minerals, Solvay and Calumite.

Univar Solvents import some 30,000 tonnes of specialist chemicals at Partington North, which is just downstream from the Peel Ports operated Irlam Container Terminal.

Irlam Container Terminal handles over 6,000 containers a year including boxes for companies such as Tesco Supermarkets and Procter & Gamble.

As the Ship Canal moves closer to the heart of Manchester, at Irwell Park Wharf European Metals Recycling operates a terminal where scrap metal is received, processed, sorted and loaded onto ships, mainly for Northern Spain. On the south bank of the Canal in Trafford Park, and with a berth on the Ship Canal, Cargill manufactures starch for use in a wide range of industries.

Rank Hovis Limited ships more than 100,000 tonnes of wheat a year from the Royal Seaforth Grain Terminal at the Port of Liverpool to its mill in Trafford Park, adjacent to the Canal's terminus in Manchester. Rank's wheat is carried on the barges operated by the Big Ditch Shipping Company, who operate from berths in the Manchester Dry Docks area of the Port.