Council chiefs ready for canal talks

SENIOR council figures at Warrington are preparing for a high-level meeting with Peel Ports, the company that owns and operates the swing bridges which serve Warrington’s routes over the Manchester Ship Canal.
Talks between councillors, local MPs and Peel Ports have taken place over the last 18 months, since Peel produced its Mersey Ports Master Plan detailing the company’s growth strategy for an increase in use of the canal.
But in the last week council officials have sought an urgent meeting with Peel as public concern has mounted over traffic problems caused by the increasing frequency of bridge openings during peak times when disruption to road traffic is at its most severe.
The council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr Linda Dirir (pictured), said: “We now have a good working relationship with Peel Ports. We have held a number of meetings with their senior directors, and quite a lot has been achieved through the new dialogue we’ve established.
“Although there has been an increase in overall shipping movements, I’m glad to say that as a result of our discussions a larger proportion of these are occurring overnight, and Peel have agreed to stop allowing non-urgent maintenance vessels to pass through the bridges during the peak period. We are also in agreement about an early warning system for bridge closures to give the travelling public as much information as possible about when the bridges are going to swing, to allow them to plan their journeys.
“However, the total number of peak period sailings has increased by over 40 per cent from 2012 to 2013. In view of this we now need Peel to agree to limit the number of sailings in the peak period to a level of 100 a year or below.
“Peel must commit to minimising the disruption”
Cllr Dirir continued: “We want Peel to agree to sign a memorandum of understanding committing themselves to this target.
“We also want to see them commit to improving the mechanisms of their bridges in order to make them swing faster so they’ll be open for shorter periods of time, minimising the disruption caused every time they open.
“The council does acknowledge the need to work in partnership and we have committed to introducing a system to provide advanced warning of planned shipping movements to stakeholders through the use of an early warning system.”
Cllr Dirir added that the council also wanted Peel Ports to agree to a programme of repainting the bridges, given their locations on important gateways to the town.
She added: “It’s vital that Peel agree to the council’s very reasonable proposals. After all, at one of our meetings last year Gary Hodgson, Peel Ports’ chief operating officer, did say in public that he saw any sailings by non-urgent vessels in the peak hours as a company failure.”