Belfast Harbour Reveals Plans For Major Urban Garden Investment

Belfast Harbour has unveiled plans for a multi-million pound investment in its public space to create a vibrant new ‘green’ urban garden for the city.

Known as City Quays Gardens, the proposed investment will develop new public space for local and visiting communities which will blend the rich industrial and maritime heritage of the area with an innovative and sustainable design. The City Quays Gardens project will be delivered in a number of phases, with a £3 million phase one investment focusing on the creation of a 0.8 hectare/2-acre green public space on land adjacent to the City Quays buildings and the historic Belfast Harbour Offices. With sustainability and environmental excellence as a key design focus, the City Quays Gardens will be developed to achieve the ‘One Planet Living’ environmental accreditation, a first in Northern Ireland. The Gardens will incorporate an eco-conscious design and create new habitats for wildlife; enhancing biodiversity and utilising renewable solar energy to provide all power requirements. The new Gardens will blend the maritime heritage of the site with sustainable design, featuring richly planted green spaces with seating, extensive tree planting, events lawns with amphitheatre seating and outdoor workspace with publicly available 5G WiFi. The project is also designed to help promote active and sustainable travel, reconnecting the National Cycle Network by incorporating an off-road alternative cycle route along the City’s waterfront. The project will also improve pedestrian and cycle connections within close proximity to a range of public transport halts, including York Street Railway station. Belfast Harbour is working closely with Maritime Belfast Trust and Belfast City Council to ensure that the new space can be animated with events, activities and historic trails and that it seamlessly integrates with the Maritime Mile and other public space developments within the City.

Biodiversity

Commenting on the plans, Joe O’Neill, Chief Executive of Belfast Harbour said: “Our ‘Port for Everyone’ vision is to develop an iconic waterfront for the city, working with partners to create a vibrant space that all communities can enjoy, and making Belfast Harbour an attractive place to live, work, visit and invest. “This investment will transform the public space around City Quays, making it an attractive leisure space for visitors and better connecting the Harbour Estate to our neighbouring communities and the city core. With our strong focus on bio-diversity, we believe that the new Gardens will contribute to Belfast Harbour’s sustainability goal of reaching net zero carbon by 2030 and enhance the wellbeing of local communities and visitors alike. “We are really excited about this project and look forward to engaging fully with our neighbours, tenants, partners and the wider community to hear their views on our plans for City Quays Gardens and will of course engage with Belfast City Council throughout the process.” Ian Humphreys from Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful said: “The pandemic has reinforced the importance of nature and spending time outdoors and we welcome that City Quays Gardens will offer a new space to promote community gathering in the City. “Incorporating key biodiversity in an urban area has never been more important and the new City Quays Gardens will create a green space which not only enhances the environment but can also support the health and wellbeing of those who use it.” A voluntary public consultation has commenced, ahead of a Planning Application being submitted to Belfast City Council. Subject to Planning Approval the project will begin development in 2022.

Stena Line says women are the answer to the jobs crisis in shipping

The shipping sector, like many other parts of the economy, has not been immune to the effects of Brexit and the pandemic. This combined double whammy has led to a shortage of people needed to fill vacant roles and address the huge skills shortage in the sector.

Stena Line believes that if the shipping industry is going to solve its jobs’ crisis, there is a simple solution: it urgently needs to encourage more women to work in careers at sea, in roles that are often still viewed as for men. With a shortage of skilled labour within the shipping industry there is currently fierce competition for talent. Therefore, now more than ever it is vitally important that companies like Stena Line provide an attractive place for young seafarers to work and develop successful careers. In order to succeed at this, the ferry company is hoping to build on its existing strong diversity drive to recruit more women, and crucially promote them to senior positions. It has set itself a target of appointing 30% females managers by the end of 2022. In a sector where only 2% of the 1.2 million seafarers are women this is an ambitious target that lays down a gauntlet for other companies to try to achieve.

First Female Captain

Stena Line has also announced that this year the company has appointed its first female Captain, 33 year old Lynette Bryson became Master on the Stena Adventurer in the Irish Sea, where she also has a full female Bridge team of officers. Speaking after her appearance at the Women in Maritime Summit, which was held as part of London International Shipping Week, Margaret Jensen Dickson, Group Head of People at Stena Line, says: “The shipping sector is in a jobs’ crisis and there is a shortage of people in every part of the industry. No matter whether the problem is caused by Brexit, or the Pandemic, there is simple solution and that is to encourage more women to work in shipping. The people shortage is one of the biggest crises Stena Line has ever faced and we are throwing the kitchen sink at it. Onboard roles can no longer be seen as a male domain. With the appointment of Lynette Bryson as our first female Captain we have shown that woman can and will succeed at sea and Stena Line will be here to support them”. The Stena Adventurer is one of the largest vessel in Stena Line’s fleet. It serves the key Dublin to Holyhead route, where it operates four services a day. As Night Master it means Lynette Bryson, and her team of female officers, are in charge of two of those trips. Since joining Stena Line in 2017 Lynette has worked herself through the ranks, gaining four promotions as a result of her professional, dedicated and diligent approach to her key leadership on the vessel. Comments Captain Bryson: “I am incredibly proud to be sailing as Master on the Stena Adventurer, and as the first female Master at the company; this could not have been done without the support of my colleagues at Stena Line. As a young woman I always dreamt of a career at sea and never thought I could ever achieve being a Captain. I hope my position can encourage more young women to follow my path and have a successful maritime career.” During the pandemic Stena Line has also played a crucial role in supporting new maritime recruits from other parts of shipping, particularly the cruise sector. With cruise lines no longer operating deck cadets and trainees were able to work for Stena Line, order to confirm they had enough hours at sea in order to graduate. Stena Line’s diversity ambitions are guided by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 5 – Achieve Gender Equality and Empower all Women and Girls– and specifically, to achieve Target 5.5 “Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.”

Captain, 33 year old Lynette Bryson. Margaret Jensen Dickson, Group Head of People at Stena Line.

New Port of Calais Opens for Business

The new Port of Calais has been officially opened following six years of construction. Regarded as the largest European port infrastructure project of the decade, the extension and modernisation at the port represented an investment of €863m.

Located on one of the busiest, most active maritime straits in the world in terms of passenger and goods transported, the new Port of Calais was designed in 2002 on the initiative of Calais’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry, then concessionaire of the Port. This port extension and modernisation project was designed to anticipate and adapt to the development of cross-Channel traffic, new-generation ships and the logistics and industrial needs of tomorrow. With heavy goods traffic, which has practically doubled and a volume of crossChannel freight, which has tripled over the past 20 years, the old infrastructure no longer made it possible to ensure an optimal quality of service. Once the port’s capacity limit had been reached, its extension appeared essential, the port said. Beyond increasing the capacity of the terminals, the challenge was also to accommodate future generations of ferries of over 220 m in length, which require longer berthing quays and whose manoeuvres require larger basins. Extension work included a seawall of more than 3 km long, a 170 hectare basin, 90 hectares of which are navigable in the first phase, 65 hectares of platforms and roads, three new ferry berths, as well as 39 buildings necessary for the operation and secure reception of port customers. To meet the challenges of the ecological transition, the port’s design incorporates the constraints of climate change and strictly respects commitments to preserve flora and fauna. With 100 ship movements each day and soon a departure every 36 minutes, Calais is the leading French passenger port with 8.5 million passengers annually (2019 figures). While the health crisis had a strong impact on tourist traffic in 2020, a recovery is on the horizon. Today, attracting more European passengers is a major challenge for Calais and the three shipping companies operating out of the port – DFDS Seaways, P&O Ferries and, most recently, Irish Ferries, since June, 2021.