Council to buy cruise terminal

THE cruise liner terminal at the Pier Head is to be bought by Liverpool City Council, which it will expand it to deal with larger ships.

In the meantime, it says, it will explore options for building something more permanent on the Mersey waterfront.

Mayor Joe Anderson's hopes of turning the council's newly purchased Cunard Builiding into a grand passenger check-in facility were dashed on the rocks earlier this year.

A report to the Cabinet today (Friday 9 January) is recommending that the council purchases the temporary structure, which it is currently renting, and extends it so that it can deal with up to 1,800 passengers per vessel.

The improvements will see 400 new square metres of floor space to deal with 350 extra passengers / 700 bags, new toilets and a permanent early arrivals area for passengers on smaller ships so people embarking don’t have to wait for others to disembark

The council says there will also be improvements to the gateway which links the terminal to the main pontoon berth.

In 2015, 54 ships are expected, bringing with them over 80,000 passengers– a 40 per cent increase on last year.

The council says they will contribute around £5.8 million to the city’s visitor economy this year, up from £1.3 million when it was a port of call destination.

 Councillor Malcolm Kennedy, Cabinet member for regeneration, said:  “It makes economic sense for us to purchase the building as, even with the improvements we are carrying out, the cost is less than half the amount of continuing to rent it."

The highlight of the 2015 cruise season will be two events to celebrate Cunard Cruise Line’s 175th anniversary.

On 25 May the Cunard fleet will arrive on the Mersey, creating a Three Queens spectacle. Activities will take place across the weekend (from 23 to 25 May) to entertain the hundreds of thousands of people expected to descend on the city.

On 4 July, the Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2 will return to Liverpool to celebrate Britannia’s transatlantic departure exactly 175 years earlier.