What affect will the strike at the UK’s biggest container port, Felixstowe, have on UK trade?

More than 1,900 shipyard employees begin an 8-day strike at Britain’s largest container port, Felixstowe. Leaving the reasons, politics and even ethics aside, how is this going to affect UK trade? According to the ports website, Britain’s biggest and busiest container port, and one of Europe’s largest, Felixstowe, handles more than 4 million ‘Twenty-foot Equivalent Units’ (TEUs) of goods and has 2,000 ships arriving each year. Massive investment is ongoing, and its container handling capacity is forecast to double to 8 million containers in just 7 years. The port can handle all types of cargo, including Ro-Ro and rail, but its main activity is deep sea vessels and containerisation. Felixstowe plays a very significant role in keeping UK’s trade moving and 48% of Britain’s container trade is through this port. The main activity is for long distance shipments to and from Asia and around 17 different shipping companies operate between 700 overseas ports to and from Felixstowe. The strike will cause a damaging impact on both import and export supply chains, meaning that imported goods will not reach the shop shelves for consumers. Manufacturing companies will further feel the effects of an already damaged supply chain following the effect of the pandemic and Brexit. This means that the valuable raw materials that they require in order to manufacture their high quality, and sought after, ‘made in the UK’ goods will slow down and could possibly stop. And goods waiting to be shipped to UK PLC’s customers around the world will be held and subsequently delayed.

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