Hull. On the Waterfront

Hull, as a port town, always has something going on down at the docks.

There are around 5 linear miles of waterfront which in the heyday of the fishing industry and UK merchant navy will have been fair bustling with activity and man-hours worked. The St Andrew's Dock, which included the whimsical but functional Cod Farm where the fish were hung out to air dry, is part developed as a bland any-city-anywhere retail park. The remaining derelict areas, including the sorry looking brick clad but metal framed Lord Line building of that famous shipping company, have changed hands a few times, under distress or not. The latest speculative proposals are for a Marine Research Facility, oh yes and lots of houses and more shops. The old dock walls are still in place but the basin is so silted up and overgrown that the whole area assumes a single level plane of rivuleted mud with the occasional protruding shopping trolley.

A cycle path, forming a route eventually to Liverpool to the west, passes more derelict buildings, the former Fishing Authority offices and the incongrous sight of a large, brash, glazed green tile roofed and pagoda'd chinese restaurant. This path, heading east, includes a section of shouldering the bike and carrying it up a steel staircase and to a gantry over the top of the up and down concave concrete roofs of the old fish sheds.

The Albert and William Wright Dock remains in some active use. A long gash of a basin running paralell to the steep river defences.A few ships get refitted and a similar number only leave as scrap. A recent and stirring site was of the sail training ship Prince William in full rigged sail and with the crew in ceremonial position up in the masts and along the yardarms. Sold in 2010 to the Pakistan Navy the ship is now called Rah Naward, translated as Swift Mover.  A training facility in the form of a tall orange coloured tower is used for simulating the evacuation of a gas or oil rig in the dropping of enclosed fireproof lifeboats into the depths of the dock.

The Princes Dock outer basin operates as the attractive Marina district and the rattle of mastheads in a light breeze is an evocative sound.The Marina has also been developed with a hotel, apartments and some very stylish office buildings, one being referred to as the World Trade Centre. The inner basin, once so crammed with vessels that you could walk fully across just on ships decks, is now occupied by a large shopping centre.

The River Hull forms a physical and some say a cultural and certainly a sporting divide through the city. The Victoria Dock, once the main timber dock is now a large estate with river front executive houses, basin overlooking flats and landlocked town houses. The houses at the eastern edge of the estate are built at the base of a high earth bund which marks the beginning of the eastern docks.

The Alexandra, King George and Queen Elizabeth Docks  cover a large land area from the very edge of the City over a distance of about two and a half miles before reaching the Saltend refinery and power station with the skyline dominated by cooling towers and chemical flare stacks. On passing the complex at night, and squinting momentarily from watching the road, the whole scene could easily double up for the skyscrapers and towers of Manhattan. The eastern dock basins represent some of the busiest facilities in the UK for import and export trade of containerised freight. There is a steady stream of heavy vehicles from Hull, the gateway to Europe, across country to the Atlantic ports including Liverpool to provide a time and cost effective transfer of the containers between these two main economic markets. The road section immediately upon leaving the docks includes a modern swing bridge over the tidal River Hull. When operational to allow a small number of very local vessels in or out of the muddy river the whole City grinds to a halt.

This bottleneck effect is reported to have cost the city a lucrative shipping contract for the Toyota Car Plant in Derbyshire. Visiting executives researching a major export route to Europe found themselves stuck in traffic caused by the bridge being opened for a vessel whose mast head was but inches higher than the clearance. Envisaging a massive queue of car transporters missing the ferry sailings led to the opportunity being offered to a less vulnerable, even if less suited, east coast port.

The main import is softwood timber from Scandinavia and the Baltic States. The high roofed open bay sheds stand out with their stacks of paper wrapped planed and unplaned lengths of timber. On the back of lorries the labels of origin in a graffitti sprayed style can clearly be seen. On a rare visit on to the dockside, given the level of security to combat pilfering or for Customs control, the whole range of goods can be determined from refrigerated and hazardous products to edible oils, animal feed, cocoa, salt and grain. Bulkier produce includes coal, steel and with vast unruly and unsorted piles of scrap metal going the opposite direction destined for smelting in China and India.

The main passenger terminal is a modern low slung building serving the new ferries which leave for Zeebrugge and Rotterdam in the early evening and are back in their berths or moored to the terminal in the actual river ready for loading on a short scheduled basis. On a regular basis there are visiting ships which attract large crowds on the quayside. Me and the boy went on a tour of an American Cruiser, name escapes me but something like USS Dirty Harry. It was a big disappointment as the only accessible area to the public was an anti-clockwise walk around the main deck. Everything was very grey and dull. This contrasted sharply to the more recent visit of HMS Sheffield when we had virtually unlimited access around, in, under and on top of the decks, could sit in the Captains chair and press a few buttons.

The long time privatised company of Associated British Ports appear quite progressive and forward minded and have been in negotiations with one of the largest wind turbine manufacturers to try to persuade them to develop a large factory on the otherwise ready-made Alexandra Dock. There are high hopes that this project will provide long term direct employment, turbine spin off and support industries for many thousands in an area that has never really recovered from the devastation following the demise of the fishing and maritime industries. Whatever the outcome of the committed efforts to establish Hull as a pioneering city within the renewables sector there will always be something going on down on the docks.