Hull and Humber Ports

A global gateway

Hull and Humber Ports City Region is the UK's largest port complex. Its unique asset is its geographical position.  Port traffic is already healthy here, but there is potential for more - displacing some from the congested south.

	Vision: Our vision is of a Hull and Humber Ports City Region - a Global Gateway with a thriving, outward looking, sustainable economy, building on its unique assets of location, the estuary, ports, connectivity and physical environment. We see it perpetually changing for the benefit of people, businesses and the environment, whilst making significant and distinctive contributions to the sustainability of regional, national and European economies.

The City Region's east coast  position provides a natural gateway to and from the cities of the North of England and Northern and Eastern Europe.  It is at the heart of the North European Trade Axis (NETA), the broad trade and transport corridor along the axis from Ireland, to the Mersey Ports, across northern England and via the Humber Ports to the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the Baltic States.

Economic Assets and Drivers

• The Humber is the UK's busiest trading estuary.  In 2004, over 84 million tonnes were handled, representing more than 15 per cent of the country's seaborne trade and accounting for 22 per cent of UK imports.  The Ports of Goole, Grimsby, Hull, Immingham and the independent wharves make up the UK's largest ports complex
• The City of Hull provides a large economic platform for the City Region.  Its centre is undergoing extensive redevelopment through the urban regeneration company Citybuild
• The City Region has a strong private sector research base in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries
• Hull University's current research activities include:

- The Hull Environment Research Institute (www.hull.ac.uk/HERI)
- The Clinical Biosciences Institute (www.hull.ac.uk/clinbio/ )
- The Hull Immersive Visualisation Environment (www.hull.ac.uk/hive)
- The University's Business School (www.hull.ac.uk/hubs)
- The University's Logistics Institute (www.uhli.org)
- Environment Technologies Centre for Industrial Collaboration (www.etic.com)
- Institute for Chemistry in Industry (www.hull.ac.uk/ICI )
- The Knowledge Exchange (www.hull.ac.uk/reo/ )

• The City Region has European-scale concentrations of food production and chemicals activity.  Its strength in digital knowledge drives these clusters into new ways of working

Priorities and Objectives

• To grow the economy through effective actions focused upon productivity, skills, enterprise, investment, innovation and competition
• To aim for high-output / high-reward employment, accepting that there is a need for transition and transformation in the economy and the skill sets and employability of the community 
• To create a more entrepreneurial culture including university level provision on the South Bank of the Humber; a worklessness pilot in Hull; and promoting entrepreneurial culture in schools
• To improve connectivity by dealing with transport bottlenecks, particularly those which impede access to and from the Humber Ports; improving public transport within the City Region and with other City Regions
• To prepare our places for growth by ensuring that value is added to passenger services and goods flowing through the ports; making the City Region's extensive waterfront a prime business and residential location; and by investing in creating sustainable communities through a wide range of regeneration, environment and housing market investments
• To arrest the decline of the population and encourage people to move to the City Region