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The Solent's sheltered natural harbours, double tides and inshore waters made it an ideal location for a ports industry to develop. Activity centres on the privately-owned Associated British Ports' (ABP) Port of Southampton and Portsmouth Commercial Port, which is owned and managed by Portsmouth City Council. Cowes Harbour is the main port for the Isle of Wight, and the only location on the Island with deep-water channels capable of handling bulk-cargo carrying ships.
The twentieth century has seen a progressive growth in the scale of port operations in both Portsmouth and Southampton, associated in many cases with reclamation of intertidal land. The expansion of the ports industry is driven by trends in the world market for shipping, which are essentially governed by market forces, the demands of the ship operators, and the supply within the ports. Competition within the UK ports industry and with Northern European ports is intense. The main trend driving the development of the Port of Southampton is the buoyant market in containerised goods - particularly from the Far East, and the increase in the maximum size of the container ships (the post-Panamax vessels).
Port statistics can be found in the Solent Forum's State of the Solent report.
Cowes
Cowes Harbour is the major port of entry for commercial shipping trading to the Isle of Wight. Approximately 600,000 tonnes of cargo are handled annually including such commodities as fuel, oil/petroleum, stone, shingle aggregates, timber, grain and general cargo. Ships of up to 100 metres (330ft) in length and with a draft of up to 5.4 metres (17ft 9in) use the port and mainly berth at Kingston or Medina Wharves.
Southampton
Southampton is one of the UK's busiest and most important ports and is widely recognised as the capital of the country's cruise industry. It is also the number-one car-handling port in the UK, home to the country's second largest container terminal, Southampton Container Terminals, and is the sole UK port for all Canary Islands fresh-produce imports. Southampton also handles a variety of general cargo, including dry-bulk cargoes and minerals, such as animal feed, agribulks, sand aggregates and marble chippings.
Recently there has been unprecedented growth for Southampton’s cruise industry, with 245 cruise calls and over 800,000 passengers passing through the port in 2007. During 2008, there will be an expected 290 cruise calls serving close to one million passengers.
Portsmouth
Portsmouth Commercial Port is the second busiest cross channel ferry port; the Continental Ferry Port accounts for 80 per cent of the Port's business and is served by passenger and freight ferries sailing to the continent and the Channel Islands. Portsmouth City Council has owned the Port since 1839, and it is the most successful municipal port in the UK.
Part of the Port has been developed into a state of the art fruit importing facility, currently handling almost 530,000 tonnes of quality fruit a year. Seventy percent of all bananas consumed in the UK now arrive via Portsmouth along with all of the UK’s Moroccan citrus fruit.
In the year to March 1997, the Port’s turnover was £19.3 million with a net surplus of £6.7 million. Traffic through the Continental Ferry Port comprised 2.22 million passengers, 268,968 freight units, travelling on 2,912 sailings to the Continent and the Channel Islands.
The Port of Southampton differs from Portsmouth Commercial Port in the extent of its harbour authority powers within the Solent. ABP is the statutory harbour authority for the port of Southampton, whereas the harbour authority for Portsmouth Harbour and the Eastern Solent is the Queen's Harbour Master (QHM). ABP and the QHM co-operate in administering shipping movements within the Eastern Solent with ABP taking a co-ordinating role. The harbour authority role encompasses responsibility for the navigational safety of all vessels, including the maintenance dredging of channels to advertised depths, navigation marks, hydrographic data, and control of developments which would affect hydrography by issuing harbour licences.
ABP, Portsmouth Commercial Port and Cowes Harbour Commissioners are the designated Competent Harbour Authorities (CHA) for the Solent. All pilotage of commercial ships is undertaken by pilots licensed by the respective CHA. There are close liaison arrangements between the three CHAs and QHM Portsmouth over pilotage and navigational safety matters. The smaller harbour authorities within the Solent carry similar responsibilities for ensuring navigational safety and close working relationships exist between them and the larger authorities