Three gigantic quay cranes taller than the London Eye have arrived from China at a deep water container port under construction in Essex. The 138m tall cranes (painted grey in the photo) were unloaded at the ‘London Gateway’ site on the north bank of the Thames Estuary near Basildon last Friday after a two month journey at sea.

Each crane’s enormous boom will be able to lift four containers at once and reach a container 25 rows across deck, said to be beyond the width of the world’s largest container ship. “The size of the cranes future proofs the port, allowing London Gateway to handle the next generation of ultra large container ships,” said the port’s operations director Tim Halhead.

London Gateway is set to open this autumn and is being developed by Dubai based operator DP World. Europe’s largest logistics park and a rail freight terminal capable of handling 700m long trains are planned to open alongside. The container port is said to be in the perfect position to serve the UK, with 15M people living within an 80km radius.

DP World says that containers arriving into the port will be unpackaged at the logistics park on site for dispatch by road or rail to their final destinations, rather than full containers being driven to distribution centres in the Midlands. A fully operational port could take 2000 lorries off the nation’s roads every day, it claims.

(Photo by: Gary Sullivan)

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