PORTLAND Port is asking to press ahead with the creation of a new deep water berth able to take deeper drafted and longer ships.

The re-development will replace the existing deep water berth, which was built in 1978 and is now considered beyond its economic life, creating a new berth as part of the Coaling Pier Island development, together with associated operational yard areas.

The Port says that it needs to be able to cope with the ever-increasing size of modern vessels, especially cruise liners.

The work, which could start in the autumn, is likely to be noisy at times with demolition of existing concrete structures and the hammering into place of 180 new steel piles.

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Dorset Council is being told in a preliminary application that the work will involve three stages – the partial demolition of the existing deep water berth which is 150 metres long and 13 metres wide and offers 11.6 metres depth; the partial demolition of a mooring dolphin and the creation of the new berth up to 250 metres in length, although the whole redeveloped area will be almost double this.

The new jetty head, with a suspended top will be around 150m long and 14.7 metres wide, supported on approximately 180 steel piles, fitted in pairs, each around 26m long, the top 3m of each filled with concrete.

The details submitted to Dorset Council say there will also be a short rubble mount causeway supported at the seaward end by a steel sheet pile wall with the causeway carrying a road and within it a reinforced concrete access tunnel leading to underdeck walkways.

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Included in the works will be the creation of a enclosure wall with around 200,000 square metres of infill material; an anchor wall with tie rods and coping beam and an operational paved yard area with an eastward extension of the Outer Coaling Pier.

Separate measures will be needed to dredge the berth ‘pocket’ and the approaches to it.

“In recent years, the berth has been called upon to serve an increasing number of ever larger vessels, including large cruise liners, bulk carriers and RFA Bay and Tide Class vessels and the ageing and deteriorating structure is now judged by Portland Port Ltd to have reached the end of its useful life, as presently configured,” said the Port authority in a statement to Dorset Council.

“The new development is intended serve as a multi-purpose facility, accommodating a range of vessels at the new berth, including large cruise liners, ‘Panamax’ bulk carriers, RFA tankers and other vessels. It is required therefore that the proposed designs are flexible, in terms of their detailing and configuration, accommodating a range of freeboards and mooring deck layouts commensurate with vessels of the overall lengths envisaged.”

Inevitably the work will create noise with the reinforced concrete decks broken up by jack hammers and the new steel piles driven into the sea bed by vibro-hammers an impact hammered at the expected rate of two per day.

Portland Port say “significant noise exposure” is expected to be limited to two hours a day during the piling operations with measures taken to limit the noise.

The company say that it is probable that the installation will be achieved using floating plant including spud leg floating barges, supported by a variety of heavy equipment on the shore, and the use of divers.

Preparatory work is expected to continue from now until September with the construction work starting on October 1, at the end of the cruise season, and should be substantially completed by March 31, 2023. The anticipated completion date of the new shore side facilities is December 2023.