The Duke was welcomed by Sir John Parker Joint Vice Chairman of DP World and the London Gateway team, who gave him a tour of the construction site and hosted a reception which included, amongst others, customers, local MPs and local councillors.
Sir John said of the visit: “We were delighted to welcome His Royal Highness Prince Philip to London Gateway. It was a great occasion for all of the DP World team. His Royal Highness was very interested in all aspects of the engineering project taking place at the new London Gateway container port and logistics park. He met with our young British engineers of the future who are working on the site and viewed the construction work taking place at the new port. The foundations of the new quay wall are some ten-storeys deep. It’s a very challenging and exciting project for all involved.”
London Gateway Commercial Director Charles Meaby said: “Prince Philip was very interested in the engineering aspects of the project and it was a great honour to be able to show him the site. He took a keen interest in the engineering work and took time to meet with contractors employed on the project.”
London Gateway is the UK’s single largest jobs creation project, and experts predict 36,000 new jobs will be created from the completed development, providing an extra £3.2 billion into the country’s economy annually[1]. Around 1,000 jobs will be created in the coming months, with 700 construction roles and 300 new port jobs.
The news of London Gateway’s official opening in 2013 was revealed to an audience of more than 500 stakeholders at a special event on Tuesday attended by Business Secretary Dr Vince Cable and Shipping Minister Mike Penning, who were hosted by DP World Chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Vice Chairman Jamal Majid Bin Thaniah, DP World CEO Mohammed Sharaf and London Gateway CEO Simon Moore.
The port will have an initial capacity of 1.6 million TEU, or twenty foot equivalent container units. An estimated 65 million road freight miles will be saved every year as many goods will no longer need to be transported from deep sea ports to inland distribution centres. Instead, goods will be sent straight into the new logistics park and then directly to shops and homes – substantially cutting CO2 emissions.
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