The penultimate piece in this series looks at maritime transport.
While it’s not the most commonly discussed transport method in Wales (at least prior to Brexit), it’s still vitally important to international trade.
Additionally, it’s one of the most legally complicated. Also, aside from rail infrastructure, it’s one of the largest areas of transport policy not fully devolved to Wales.
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Areas that are fundamentally the same in each of the six nations include port security (using ISPS regulations from the International Maritime Organisation), customs management at ports and the existence of a maritime office/regulator – whether as a government department or executive agency.
Although Wales doesn’t do badly in terms of tonnage handled each year, according to the Welsh Government1 around 30 million tons (64% of the total) of that was oil, crude oil or liquified gas products. That’s not exactly good for our climate ambitions, with Milford Haven being a strategic oil and liquified gas terminal for Great Britain as a whole.
Sea transport’s relative importance also varies heavily.
Denmark has proportionally more ferry passengers because it’s an important gateway between Central Europe and Scandinavia. Scotland has much higher passenger numbers because ferries play an important part in connecting outlying islands. The importance of ferries as public transport in Auckland and Wellington is also marked out in New Zealand government statistics2.
Wales, by contrast, has very few navigable rivers and only a few (strategically important) ferry links with Ireland. Naturally, passenger numbers will be lower – not helped by Brexit or the pandemic. Whether ferry links should be a priority for further development was touched on in Part V and will be again later.
Sea transport may be an example of small nations punching above their weight too. As noted, Maersk – a Danish-headquartered logistics conglomerate – is one of the largest container shipping companies in the world.
Even a landlocked country like Switzerland has long maintained a merchant navy, but this has proven highly controversial. The bankruptcy of a major shipping company in 2016-17 damaged the reputation of the Swiss flag to such an extent that it’s flirted with being included on a blacklist.
Here’s an overview/summary of Wales’ current maritime infrastructure:
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1. Welsh Government (30th November 2022). “Sea transport”. Available at: https://www.gov.wales/sea-transport-2021
2. New Zealand, Ministry of Transport (2018-19). “Public transport: Ferry boardings by region”. Available at: https://www.transport.govt.nz/statistics-and-insights/public-transport/sheet/boardings-all-modes
