Felixstowe suspends charges - RHA response

The Port of Felixstowe has announced that they have suspended some charges for a new booking in system this month.

The Suffolk Port’s new Container Booking System (CBS) launched 1 January, but officials have said “there will be no charging [hauliers] for Late Notification Period (LNP) changes, or peak time bookings during January.

“Charges for Guaranteed Bookings and No Shows will still apply, with invoicing & collection for January applied as normal in February. The new charges will apply from February 1st, with invoicing in March.”

Tim Wray RHA Vice Chair and Managing Director of Multimodal Logistics said the move is welcome in principle but the short notice the Port has given hauliers about the suspension of some charges has increased admin workloads.

“The Port only told us of this decision the day before the new charges were due to come in which has meant hauliers have had to go back to their customers and amend charge schedules worked on over Christmas in anticipation of the planned changes as previously advised.

“It’s frustrating that they didn’t inform the industry of this decision at least two weeks earlier which would have meant operators, and their customers wouldn’t have had to duplicate work at the last minute. The port must have known they had planned to do this before the date of notification.

“We urge the Port to listen to what operators need and be better at communicating with our industry.”