Goodbye to road AILments
A revolutionary new concept will take many Abnormal Indivisible Loads off Britain's crowded road system.
Traffic reports warning of delays to road users caused by the movement of Abnormal Indivisible Loads (AILs) should soon be far fewer in number following the introduction into service of a revolutionary new vessel. Built at a cost of £8m, the Multi Purpose Pontoon (Terra Marique) is capable of transporting individual loads of up to 1,200 tonnes along the UK coast and inland waterways including the Manchester Ship Canal and the tidal stretches of the Thames and Trent.
Built for Robert Wynn and Son Ltd (RWSL) in partnership with the Department for Transport, which provided RWSL with a record-breaking £8.5m Freight Facilities Grant, the Terra Marique will be christened Terra Marique on 24 March at a ceremony at the House of Commons attended by David Jamieson MP, Transport Minister responsible for all public transport, roads, shipping and aviation. Terra Marique's godmother will be Miss Daisy Wynn, daughter of Peter Wynn, managing director of RWSL.
Terra Marique is designed to work in association with a smaller vessel Inland Navigator, which is able to transport AILs of up to 400 tonnes by water to and from points many miles inland. Towns and cities accessible to Inland Navigator include Leeds, Maidenhead, Nottingham, Rotherham, Worcester and York. Together the two vessels can transport huge pieces of cargo many hundreds of miles around the UK coast and to the ports and inland waterway systems of North West Europe.
When encountered on motorways and moving at a snail’s pace, heavy and wide AILs are extremely frustrating for other road users. However, they are invariably extremely important pieces of equipment: petrochemical modules, transformers and turbines destined for power stations or key exports or imports that have to be routed via major deepsea ports. Getting as many as possible of these items off the roads has been a UK Government priority for many years, explains Peter Wynn:
''This will be a special day in the history of our company and the culmination of five years hard work. The potential to transfer these disruptive loads onto inland waterways has been with us for decades, but Government assistance and support was always going to be essential if ideas were to be translated into reality. We hope that Terra Marique and Inland Navigator will demonstrate that coastal and inland waterway shipping has an important part to play in the fight against congestion.
''To give just one example of what our two vessels can achieve: no longer need AILs be transported around the M25. With careful planning and in close cooperation with the Port of London Authority, we are now able to move these loads straight through the centre of London without any disruption to the life of the city whatsoever.
''We can quote many comparable examples for cities such as Manchester, Nottingham and Worcester, and also parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. At last, there is an alternative to road for AILs. Together these two vessels have the potential to remove many AILs per year from motorways such as the M25, M1, M5, M6, M18 and M62.''
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