Major UK ports operator Peel Ports Group says that green infrastructure projects at its sites are being delayed due to complicated regulations and underfunded authorities. This is impacting projects at ports which handle much of the UK’s steel trade, as well as projects by important steel-consuming companies, Kallanish understands.
“You’ve got regulators that are not well resourced enough. You’ve got legislation that’s been brought in that’s measuring everything to within a gnat’s whisker of nothing,” Peel Ports chief executive Claudio Veritiero told the Financial Times in an interview.
Projects are therefore taking much longer to approve and regulatory processes are becoming far more complicated. At the same time, regulators do not have the resources to review projects in a timely manner.
The electrical grid is at the heart of the problems. Carmaker Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall, aims to fully electrify the logistics hub in Liverpool, operated by Peel Ports, but has yet to complete its grid connections. The project is the UK’s largest roof-mounted solar operation.
This project, being developed with German energy firm Eon, could take another four years to complete because of constrained grid capacity and a lack of available connections.
Peel Ports ships around 70 million tonnes/year of cargo through its UK ports.
