Thought-about the biggest European port infrastructure venture of the last decade, the brand new Port of Calais has been inaugurated.
The extension and modernisation of the port represented an funding of €863 million.
Positioned within the coronary heart of one of many busiest, most energetic maritime straits on the planet when it comes to passenger and items transport, the brand new Port of Calais was designed in 2002.
This port extension and modernisation venture was conceived to anticipate and adapt to the event of cross-Channel visitors, new-generation ships and the logistics and industrial wants of tomorrow.
With heavy items visitors which has virtually doubled and a quantity of cross-Channel freight which has tripled over the previous 20 years, the infrastructure of the Port of Calais now not made it doable to make sure an optimum high quality of service.
As soon as the capability restrict had been reached, its extension appeared important.
Past rising the capability of the terminals, the problem was additionally to accommodate future generations of ferries over 220 metres lengthy which require longer docking quays and whose manoeuvres require bigger basins.
The extension of the Port of Calais features a seawall of greater than three kilometres lengthy, a 170-hectare basin, 90 hectares of that are navigable within the first section, 65 hectares of platforms and roads, three new ferry berths, in addition to 39 buildings essential for the operation and safe reception of port prospects.
With 100 ship actions on daily basis and shortly a departure each 36 minutes, Calais is the main French passenger port with 8.5 million passengers yearly (2019 figures).
Having disappeared in July 1999, duty-free is making an enormous comeback on the cross-Channel route.
The duty-free store will cowl 1,000 metres squared on the bottom flooring of the Le Calais constructing within the customs space, accessible immediately from the boarding areas.
The brand new port supplies Calais and the Hauts-de-France area with an distinctive facility that resolutely seems to the long run.
