Storms lashing the UK on Monday and Wednesday, as well as strike action by Sea France, are causing delays to imports.
The port of Dover was closed for nine hours on Monday, re-opening at 5pm as winds reached hurricane force of 90 miles per hour.
The port of Dover’s marketing manager, Keith Southey, said: “Inevitably there have been delays, as we have been down to 30 per cent of shipping capacity because of the weather and the dispute by Sea France officers.”
Operation Stack, which sees lorries held outside the Kent coastal town when there are shipping delays, has been in place intermittently for two weeks as a result.
“The operating schedule has been severely affected by the weather, and we can only have one vessel manoeuvring in the harbour at a time when the conditions are like this, which obviously disrupts the schedule,” said Southey.
On the other side of the English Channel at Calais, up to 2,000 lorries have been held, delaying arrivals of produce from Spain and France. Import-export firm Davis (Louth) Ltd reported a backlog, although produce from the Netherlands is largely managing to get through via the Eurotunnel. “Everything is subject to delay, and I can’t see there being any improvement until the early part of next week,” said a spokesman for the firm.
Managing director Peter Davis estimates that the delays amount to about 24 hours. “We are doing our best, as no one likes you being late. For example, we have put two drivers on in Spain,” he said.
John Grieve of soft-fruit importer Lisons said he had been “lucky” so far. “You can get badly affected by these sort of situations,” he said. “But we have been lucky, and have only been delayed by hours rather than days.”
As freshinfo went to press, vessels from the Caribbean into Dover had managed to meet their schedules. Brian Madderson of Dover stevedore George Hammond said: “Fortunately, the Seatrade Reefers Colorica service was able to speed up its voyage and discharge before the port closed on Monday. It had about 800 pallets and 25 containers of bananas, pineapples and melons from Colombia and Costa Rica.”
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