In Conversation with Warrenpoint Harbour CEO

DAVID HOLMES

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, WARRENPOINT PORT

While Warrenpoint Harbour Authority is celebrating 50 years since its inception, the port itself is also looking forward to marking its 250th anniversary later this decade. We recently caught up with its Chief Executive Officer David Holmes to find out how the port has been performing in these challenging times.

David Holmes joined the Harbour in 2019 from Irwin’s Bakery where he had been Operations Director for the past six years. Previous roles included senior positions at Kerry Group, Unigate, and Premier Foods. His background in dealing with complex operations and supply chains has already proven to be a big asset to the Harbour as he and his team continue to work on increasing tonnage and turnover at what is Northern Ireland’s second largest port in terms of volume.

First, we asked him that while he doesn’t have a marine / shipping background, what does he think he has brought to the role since taking up the appointment?

When joining any new organisation, even one where you have experience in the sector, there is a period of listening and learning. It is essential to get to know the people, the processes and to get an understanding of the culture. The fact that I joined only six months before the pandemic started and only months before Brexit has levelled the playing field regarding experience. The usual induction period was dominated by issues outside of our control. I am lucky that there is a strong team in place who were able to support my onboarding process. In terms of what I bring to the role, I believe that communication is key, both internally and externally. I have been working on increasing our stakeholder engagement and improving our internal and external communication. Health and Safety is also a priority for me. I have been working with the team on a programme of continuous improvement. As I have worked both operationally and strategically throughout my career, I understand the challenges and opportunities open to the Port. I believe I bring a wealth of cross sector experience as well as the willingness to continuously learn and to be agile to adapt to changing circumstances.

The past year has been a difficult one, not least because of the pandemic, so what have been the challenges and how have you overcome them?

The challenges of the past year have certainly not been confined to a Port environment. We thought at the start of 2020 that Brexit would be our priority. We were spending a significant proportion of time on preparations for this and the impact it may have on our customers. As the pandemic took hold, we had to switch our focus to protect our people and keep the Port Covid free, without impacting on operational activity. As we started to get an understanding what a Covid world looked like, we could not take our eye off Brexit. Dealing with these two major disruptive forces along with day-to-day operations certainly has been a challenge. By mid-year however, we had started to turn things around and I must commend our team who have worked exceptionally hard over the past 12 months. We ended up having a strong year despite the challenges, which helps to demonstrate the resilience and agility of the business.

Despite Brexit, and the subsequent lockdowns, the port posted some reasonable figures for 2020, can you elaborate? To what do you attribute those figures?

We have been in a period of transition and change literally since I joined the Port. We have a small senior management team, so we’ve had to work efficiently and effectively. We spent the best part of 2020 preparing for what impact Brexit would have on our services, while dealing with a global pandemic. The robust figures can be attributed to several factors including a strong relationship with existing customers; a training investment in the Port team; a fundamental commitment to staying safely open for business with the wholehearted engagement of our teams; a focused effort to respond in kind to presented consignment opportunities; and to stay one step ahead of the logistical uncertainty that Brexit offered; whilst pursuing strategic improvements within the Port.

What new systems and processes have you had to introduce in the wake of Brexit?

A significant amount of the Brexit preparation work that we carried out was to enable us to support our customers. We also had to prepare for DAERA (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs) to use our site to carry out checks on some products coming from GB to NI. These are currently being carried out at temporary facilities as we await further information on permanent arrangements. As an organisation the Port did not have many new systems to implement. It is, however, particularly important that we were able to support our customers with the transition. We had to understand the additional complexities so that we could make sure Warrenpoint Port offered the smoothest process possible.

We registered as an Office of Transit to enable our incoming cargoes a greater degree of service and convenience; we liaised closely with HMRC to modify and be compliant with new liability arrangements; and we worked closely with the Local Council to ensure that their SPS checks could be facilitated.

What is the year ahead looking like? What challenges do you expect?

We are very optimistic about the year ahead. The Port is absolutely open for business. We are hoping to build on a Covid recovery to deliver steady growth this year. Brexit continues to dominate the news as we still do not have final agreement on the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. We know Brexit will continue to occupy our time in the months ahead. We also are mindful that Covid has not gone away. We will continue to implement safe working practices to try to keep the Port Covid free. Overall, however, the outlook is good, and we are tentatively looking forward with confidence to a strong year.

We understand there has been some disquiet about the presence of the new CO2 facility at the Port; how are you addressing that?

We totally understand that people may have concerns about a new facility like this, particularly in relation to the visual aspect. We have been engaging constructively with the operator and our neighbours to work through these concerns. A port by its very nature is an industrial zone. We understand that this is sometimes at odds with our surroundings in an area of outstanding natural beauty. A centralised CO2 terminal – that uses recovered CO2 - on the island of Ireland however brings benefits, including reducing over 1000 road imports per year, saving more than 450,000 road miles; and improves the security of supply for a natural food preservative and essential key ingredient for our food and beverage industry. We have a strategic goal to visually enhance this installation with tree planting which is well underway. Tasteful screening is to be deployed in the interim as the trees grow.

On the wider front, how important is it to keep the local community ‘on board’ going forward?

Being a good corporate citizen is very important to me and our team here at the Port. We are very mindful of the beautiful place where we work and most of our team live. It is important for us to make a valuable contribution into the local community. We have introduced a number of measures recently including a quarterly magazine, face to face [virtual] scheduled updates with elected representatives and an annual Community fund to support this commitment. We had a fantastic Christmas initiative which supported 23 different organisations in our locality. This was supported by the Port’s key customers for which the Port remains very grateful. It is a journey of continuous improvement and we look forward to building on this in the months and years ahead.

Anything else you would like to add?

Warrenpoint Port is the second largest in Northern Ireland by volume. This year Warrenpoint Harbour Authority celebrates 50 years since its inception and later this decade we will mark 250 years of Warrenpoint Port. It is an exciting time to be leading such an organisation. We have a fantastic team, great customers and stakeholders and a wonderful local community. We are strategically located on the Dublin to Belfast economic corridor. We are open for business and we look forward to welcoming new and existing customers back to face-to-face engagement in the near future.