17 February 2011

With over 360 ships visiting the harbour every year and an average charge of £1.5m per ship, income from ships docking at the cruise terminals amounts to more than £500m a year.

It would seem logical therefore that the city council would do everything in their power to make these visitors feel welcome and to encourage more ships to make use of the Southampton harbour.

The decision by the city council to impose a levy on passengers to fund major road improvements in the vicinity of the harbour therefore caused a lot of unhappiness in cruise circles.

According to a report that was leaked to the Daily Echo, the council planned a levy of up to £10 per passenger to fund road improvements in the vicinity of Dock Gate 4. Their argument was apparently that up to 30 000 passengers sometimes disembarked at the same time from cruise ships in the harbour and that they are mainly responsible for the traffic congestion in the area on those days.

Fortunately the report reached the desk of David Dingle, the UK boss of Carnival Cruises. He immediately started a campaign to stop the proposed levy. It seems to have worked, since the council has now shelved their plans.

In an interview local MP Alan Whitehead said that the Council should not kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Click Here to view all of our P&O Cruise deals