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Trucks bound for Ireland face seven-kilometer collapses towards Holyhead as the Brexit stockpile, weather delays and the loss of a ferry due to a Covid-19 outbreak congest the Welsh port.
Record levels of cargo are moving through the Irish Sea in “phenomenal” volumes, a shipping industry insider said, before new border controls go into effect with Brexit from January 1.
The loss of a Belfast-bound Stena Line ferry from Birkenhead to a coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday forced carriers to redirect ferries from Holyhead to Dublin Port.
Bad weather has forced ferries leaving the Stena Line-owned port to be delayed and congested, with traffic jammed at Junction 3 of the main A55 road through North Wales.
A spokesperson for Stena Line Ports, which operates the port of Holyhead, said the delays were due to a combination of three factors: bad weather, a build-up of Brexit stocks and the Covid outbreak.
He said Stena Line’s records for freight transport across the Irish Sea had been broken for three weeks in a row with an “absolutely massive” 20 per cent increase in volumes from last year.
“Some clients bring in six times what they would normally get,” he said.
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Adverse weather
Ferries were not canceled, but there were long delays due to adverse weather, the company said.
Stena’s ferry company expected the Covid-striken vessel, the Stena Edda, to be back in service and operating on the Irish Sea route on Thursday night once a deep cleaning of the ship was completed.
“Traffic is moving now as we fill the ferries, but obviously we will have another wave later,” the ferry company spokesman said.
The British port is a critical transit point for merchants and carriers from the Republic and Northern Ireland shipping goods to and from Great Britain and continental Europe.
Just over half of the goods that pass through Dublin Port, the busiest port in the state, go to Holyhead.
The congestion has caused a delay in arrivals to the port of Dublin, which according to one shipping source emphasized the importance of the transit chain between the two ports before Brexit occurs.
Eugene Drennan, chairman of the Irish Road Transport Association, said the delays at Holyhead were a warning of worse traffic in the future if carriers faced severe post-Brexit controls on both sides of the Irish Sea.
“It is enough that the weather causes this without us generating goals at our own goal. If we are not efficient and streamlined with Brexit, this is what we are facing, ”he said.
As of January 1, Irish traders and carriers will not be able to ship goods or board ferries in the Irish Sea unless they have the correct customs documentation.
Seamus Leheny, policy manager for Logistics UK, a representative body for the transport industry, said that many of the trucks in the Holyhead jam are trucks from Northern Ireland.
Shipping volumes jumped 50 percent with “racking up a problem,” he tweeted.
“Delays and congestion at Holyhead are of concern to Irish supply chains, both north and south, as it is the main route for ‘just in time’ consumer goods, so any delay will affect retail and manufacturing, ”he said.
“We have many members expressing concern about this, which is being fueled by warehousing in preparation for the end of the transition phase of Brexit.”
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