The Port of Tilbury’s well known Chief Police Officer, James Poulain is retiring in September following a 38-year career with the police service.

After seven years of dedicated service to the Port of Tilbury, James is hanging up his handcuffs for the final time when he retires on 2^nd September 2022.

James spent 31 years in the Metropolitan Police, concluding his time in the force as Inspector working within Taskforce on the Territorial Support Group, before joining the Port of Tilbury Police as its Chief Police officer in 2016.

Tilbury one of the UK’s largest ports which manages a diverse range of activities from container cargo to cruise ships and James quickly forged strong and positive relationships with the port community and its stakeholders. James was instrumental in introducing the community policing model to the Port of Tilbury which enabled the force to share best practice in areas such as intelligence gathering, crime prevention and incident response creating a hostile environment for those who seek to be involved in criminality.

Paul Dale, Asset & Site Director at the Port of Tilbury said: “We have also enjoyed working with James over the past 7 years and I personally want to thank him for his solid support and dedication to the port. James’ role across the port was wide and diverse but he always found time to be part of community engagement activities and was always keen to be involved at our open days and other community events.

James is a very popular colleague with his police team and our wider port community and he leaves behind a positive lasting legacy as he enjoys his well-earned retirement.”

Commenting on his career, James Poulain, said: “It has been an absolute privilege to finish my policing career at the Port of Tilbury. With the support of the Tilbury Senior Management Team and the professionalism of my staff together we have had a major impact on reducing crime and making the Port a hostile environment for criminals. I would thank all the partner agencies who have assisted in this goal. Finally, I would like to pay tribute to all those officers who tirelessly commit themselves to front line policing.”

The Port of Tilbury welcomes a new Chief of Police Matt Bass who joined the team in August from the British Transport Police where he served for 19 years finishing as head of recruit training for the force. Matt brings a wealth of experience from his previous Police service including, response policing, counter terrorism firearms policing, crime scene examination, civil protection, recruit training, and disaster victim identification.

Paul Dale said: “We warmly welcome our new Chief of Police, Matt Bass who has joined us and is settling into his new role. It is an exciting time for the Port of Tilbury as we continue to invest and grow to support customer demand. Our police team provide a vital service for us both within the port and in the wider community.”

INEOS at Grangemouth endorses the bid to establish the Forth Green Freeport

• The Forth Green Freeport will sustain a prosperous industrial and manufacturing sector,
  provide high quality employment and deliver economic benefit to the country
• Andrew Gardner, CEO and Chairman at INEOS Grangemouth: “We are proud to be part
  of the bid consortium that brings together key public and private sector organisations
  with a shared goal, to deliver a just and fair transition to net zero in the region, along
  with the vision to reindustrialise and create economic development for the whole
  country.”

In backing the bid for the Forth Green Freeport, INEOS recognises the important and significant
role this region has to play in achieving the Scottish and UK Governments’ net zero targets. The
bid will bring together key partners who are ideally placed to facilitate and accelerate investment
into the region together with addressing and tackling the challenges that lie ahead to achieve a
just and fair transition to net zero.

INEOS is already playing its part, delivering on the fundamental elements that underpin and
complement the Forth Green Freeport bid and in providing good quality jobs at its Grangemouth
site. Forward planning and investments are already in place via our established ‘Road Map to net
zero’. This includes the construction of a new energy plant, an investment in hydrogen production
that will see a new hydrogen hub in the region along with a focus on improved manufacturing
operations and research and development that is delivering new ranges of polymers with
increasing amounts of recycled content.

We have created investment-ready space within our industrial estate that will be attractive to third
party businesses with the Forth Green Freeport providing a fiscal and favourable investment
environment to encourage third parties to invest, bringing with it renewed prosperity to the region.

In welcoming the Forth Green Freeport bid, Andrew Gardner, CEO and Chairman at INEOS
Grangemouth said, “We are proud to be part of the bid consortium led by Forth Ports Limited. The
bid brings together key public and private sector organisations with a shared goal, to deliver a just
and fair transition to net zero in the region, along with the vision to reindustrialise and create
economic development for the whole country. The bid has the potential to create an ambitious and
attractive green investment zone, which is focused on the Forth but will have a much broader
impact across Scotland, including creating 50,000 new green jobs, providing skills development for
young people and creating local jobs in local communities for local people.”

The arrival of the Skylight container vessel into Scotland’s key strategic freight hub at The Port of Grangemouth marks the maiden call of a new Scottish Express (SCX) service secured with the CMA CGM Group, a global player in sea, land, air and logistics solutions, and its subsidiary, Containerships, the leader in intra-European multimodal transport.

The new service, which calls into Grangemouth each Thursday, has been launched to principally support growing exports from Scotland’s largest exporters who transport produce from Leven and Shieldhall through Grangemouth and into Europe to service worldwide destinations. The SCX service rotation is a weekly route to mainland Europe, from Grangemouth via Teesport to Rotterdam, and will be capable of handling around 20,000 containers per annum through the Port.

The SCX service provides export and import customers with a regular additional call into mainland Europe each week through Scotland’s largest container port, increasing shipping capacity to meet the demands of the Scottish market. The Port of Grangemouth, which handles 30% of Scottish GDP, will be a strategic site for a new Forth Green Freeport which will help to transform the port into a major logistics, manufacturing, renewable energy hub and R&D centre for the Scottish and UK economies.

James Leeson, General Manager at CMA CGM UK, said: “We are delighted to announce the launch of our new SCX service at the Port of Grangemouth. This is an important addition to the Scottish market with a fixed day weekly service and increases Scotland’s connectivity to mainland Europe and beyond.

“We are committed to supporting economic growth within the areas we operate, and I am looking forward to continuing to work alongside Forth Ports as we expand our service offering in Scotland.”

Commenting on the new service, Derek Knox, Head of Operations Scottish Ports, said: “The new Scottish Express service is great news for Grangemouth and for Scotland. The Port of Grangemouth plays a key role in Scotland’s logistics and freight sector and this new weekly call will increase the frequency of vessels connecting to mainland Europe and we welcome the team from CMA CGM and Containerships to our container terminal.

“The additional shipping capacity created from this new direct freight service to Europe will play a key role in fulfilling the demands of the Scottish market trading with European and International destinations. This further supports our ambitions to deliver a Forth Green Freeport where one of the key objectives of the policy is to develop trade. We are continuing to deliver our investment programme in Grangemouth with new equipment, an expanded container terminal and warehousing complex, linked freight rail terminal and over 400 reefer connections securing the Port of Grangemouth as Scotland’s freight hub of choice.”

Forth Green Freeport renewables development platform takes shape with £50m port infrastructure investment

Scotland’s largest offshore wind renewables hub, at the Port of Leith, has signed a reservation and collaboration agreement with bp and EnBW, as the marshalling port for the 2.9GW Morven offshore wind project.

Forth Ports’ £50 million investment will see the facility in operation by the end of 2023, providing a bespoke offshore wind berth and a significant land bank for laydown and marshalling of offshore wind farm components. With the capacity for local content manufacturing, as well as a base for SMEs in the offshore wind supply chain, the nation’s largest renewables hub will create employment of up to 1,000 high quality, long term direct jobs and around 2,000 indirect jobs.

Morven is a major offshore wind project located 60km off the east coast of Scotland, awarded to bp and EnBW during the ScotWind leasing round with results announced earlier this year. Once completed, the project is expected to have a generating capacity of 2.9 gigawatts (GW), sufficient to power more than 3 million homes.

The Port of Leith is a key part of the Forth Green Freeport bid, submitted to the UK and Scottish governments for assessment on 20th June 2022, which seeks to re-industrialise Scotland, create large scale economic development, boost local supply chain growth, skills development and create a world-class manufacturing cluster. The bid has the potential to generate 50,000 new green jobs and act as a catalyst for new green technologies and renewable energy manufacturing, unlocking £6 billion of private and public investment for Scotland.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Carole Cran, Chief Financial Officer at Forth Ports, said: “This is significant news for our business and for Scotland, as we welcome bp and EnBW’s Morven project to Leith, the first of many for our new facility. We will be the largest offshore renewables hub in Scotland, bringing manufacturing opportunities and highly skilled, local, green jobs. This facility, and the Port of Dundee, will provide an integrated service offering to the offshore wind market, which will be instrumental in achieving the nation’s net zero targets over the next two decades.

“Our vision is to create a renewables centre of excellence for R&D, manufacturing and assembly that matches anything in northern Europe, with genuine export potential.”

Richard Haydock, Project Director, Offshore Wind, bp, said: “bp and EnBW are delighted to have secured Port of Leith for our Morven project. This is the next step for us to be able to deliver 2.9GW of clean energy. The project’s investment will support the Port of Leith with its transformation into a renewables hub and help position Forth Ports for future Scottish offshore wind projects.”

Céline Combé, EnBW Project Director, said: “Our journey with the Port of Leith started at a very early stage of our Morven project back in 2021. EnBW and bp are excited about taking the collaboration with Forth Ports to the next level with this agreement. It marks another important milestone in the development of our Morven project. We are looking forward to continuing working with the team at Forth Ports, and we are proud to keep contributing to the build out of renewable infrastructure in and for Scotland.”