Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour

Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour is a port constructed on the east coast of England at Great Yarmouth. Construction work on the Outer Harbour began in June 2007. The harbour which is built in the South Denes area was planned to bring trade to the area. The plans included a container terminal and a passenger ferry terminal, but with no confirmed contracts these were not built.

The contract for the harbour construction was awarded jointly to Van Oord UK Ltd and Edmund Nuttall Ltd. The contract was worth in the region of £75m. The new harbour consists of construction of two breakwaters with a total length of approximately 1,400m, requiring the importation of approximately 900,000 tons of rock materials. There was dredging and subsequent beneficial reuse of approximately 1,600,000 m3 of sand to provide 17.6 ha of land for future port development. The joint venture constructed approximately 450 metres of quay wall with associated capping beam and crane rail as well as 225 metres of revetment berth and associated berthing dolphins. Work commenced on site in June 2007. Completion was expected within two years with a fully operational container berth available after 18 months.

Great Yarmouth Port Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Port Holdings (IPH) which was formed in 2006 with a strategy to invest in small to medium-sized ports having the potential to expand in scope and scale, and to contribute to regeneration initiatives and economic development. The scheme received £8.75m in funding from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). Great Yarmouth Port Authority and IPH reached an agreement for Great Yarmouth Port Company to develop the Outer Harbour and take over the operation of the port.

In 2000 a partnership of the Port Authority, Norfolk County Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council had formed the East Port Great Yarmouth Ltd bringing in Peter Hardy - Special Projects Director at the County Council who had previously delivered the multi-million pound Millenium Forum project in Norwich - along with Tim Byles (Chief Executive of Norfolk County Council), Richard Packham (Chief Executive of the Borough Council) - and Alex Woods (Port Manager). Importantly some important Norfolk personages also joined the new Eastport Board – Richard Jewson (Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk) as Chairman, David Toot – Managing Director of Great Yarmouth Power and Ian MacNicol of the Country Landowners Association. The new plans featured a smaller but eminently effective Outer Harbour able to accommodate larger vessels but at a cost which made the prospects for funding its construction far more attainable. In February 2005 the then Labour Secretary of State for Transport Alistair Darling finally announced £12 million of public funding for the Outer Harbour – including £2 million in cash from Norfolk County Council and £1 million in land from the Borough Council.(Great Yarmouth Mercury - Friday 4th February 2005 & The Advertiser (Great Yarmouth Edition - Thursday 3rd February 2005).

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