Freight

The efficient movement of goods is essential for growth in the economy and is a critical element of the Merseyside Local Transport Plan. Bulk movements require capacity on strategic road and rail links, whereas local deliveries need to be accomodated within the local road network.

Wirral Council is an active partner in the Merseyside and Halton Freight Quality Partnership. Merseyside and Halton have both developed a freight strategy. The group includes representatives from the public and private sector involved in freight activities on Merseyside and Halton.

The objective of the Merseyside Freight Strategy is:

To develop and maintain a sustainable freight system that seeks to maximise the opportunities for the movement of goods by rail, effectively manages the highway network to keep traffic moving and to minimise and mitigate the adverse impacts from the movement of freight on road and rail.

The Merseyside and Halton Freight Quality Partnership (MHFQP) seeks to bring together logistics specialists and the industry to develop and promote best practice in environmentally sensitive, economic, safe and efficient freight transport.

There are several modes of transporting freight:

• Rail
• Road 
• Water (Sea or internal waterway)

The Port of Liverpool is the largest port on the UK West Coast. It is located on both sites of the River Mersey with Wirral’s eastern coastline facilitating the Twelve Quays ferry terminal. Twelve Quays can accomodatate 2 roll on- roll off (Ro-Ro) ferries at the same time at its floating landing stage. Passenger ferries also travel from Twelve Quays to both Dublin and Belfast in Ireland.