207
208
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PART II
(85) In passing from the past and the present to the future, we desire to smooth the transition by referring briefly to previous proposals for planning on the Clyde and elsewhere.
port
(86) So long ago as 1854 a Royal Commission on Local Shipping Charges recommended that a single body of conservators should be constituted in each public harbour, and that, as regards the Clyde, it was desirable that all the sea-lights should be entrusted to the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners. In 1855 and 1856 a series of Parliamentary promotions relating to the docks at Liverpool and Birkenhead attracted attention to the position on the Mersey, and in 1857 the Mersey Docks and Harbour Act became law, setting up the Board which has since administered the port. In the following year, as we have seen, the Clyde Navigation Trust was constituted. A series of acts passed between 1850 and 1898 constituted and reconstituted the Tyne Im- provement Commissioners; and the Royal Commission on the Port of London reported in 1902 with recommendations which, after much controversy, were carried into effect with modifications by the Port of London Act, 1908. Simul- taneously a Commission was investigating the position on the Humber, and the Humber Conservancy Board was reconstituted, with additional powers, by an Act of 1907. We shall later revert to the type of administrative structure adopted in these ports and elsewhere.
(87) In 1913, following upon the Parliamentary Debates on the Greenock Harbour Bill of that year, the Board of Trade raised the question with the Clyde Navigation Trustees and other bodies whether they would favour an inquiry into the desirability of some unification of the control of the Clyde. The replies disclosed an absence of any general agreement on the subject, and the matter was dropped.
In 1938 the matter was revived by the Clyde Navigation Trust, and tentative discussions took place with a number of the other authorities as to the feasi- bility of amalgamation. In 1939 the proposals were limited to an extension of the Trust's jurisdiction to Kempock Point, but excluding Greenock Harbour; but even this restricted project disappeared on the outbreak of war.
.
The weaknesses of the Clyde port administration (as of other seaports) were thrown into high relief by the great demands made upon the resources of the estuary and river during the war years, and the over-riding unified control and organisation of these resources perforce passed into the hands of the Minister of War Transport, acting through a Regional Port Director. We have found a general consensus of instructed opinion that this unified administration resulted in great advantages to national and local interests, especially during the periods when enemy action had seriously reduced the aggregate port capacity of the United Kingdom, and that without that control and direction grave prejudice might well have resulted to the allied cause. To some the question now is whether it is tolerable to revert to the old régime after experiencing the advantages of the new, while others question whether the method which worked well under emergency conditions would be productive of like results in times of peace.
(88) In 1943, with the prospect of the end of the war in view, harbour autho- rities throughout the country were invited to submit estimates of short-term and long-term schemes of development as a guide to the Government in framing
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post-war plans. Out of a total for the United Kingdom of about £65,000,000, the Clyde proposals (exclusive of the railway ports) were:-
Clyde Trust ... Greenock Ardrossan
£7,000,000 12,500,000 500,000
Per cent. of United Kingdom
10.8
19.2
.75
30.75
It will be noted that though Greenock's share of the value of the country's trade in 1938 was only .17 per cent., the port's proposals would absoro nearly one-fifth of the capital expenditure estimated for the post-war development of all the ports in the country.
As it was apparent that proposals of this order from the Clyde must involve overlapping and over-provision, discussions were initiated with a view to the production of a single master plan for the improvement of the river and estuary, and the assignment of the relative priorities of the several schemes. This line of approach proved abortive, and in that position the present Com- mittee was brought into being.
PROPOSALS SUBMITTED TO THE COMMITTEE
(89) As a result of enquires addressed to all the major bodies responsible for the trade and transport of the Clyde hinterland, and also to the local authorities and various official and semi-official agencies concerned in its administration and the planning of its future, the Committee have collected an impressive mass of instructed opinion on the second branch of their remit. Unfortunately, these opinions disclose wide divergency of view on the prin- ciples to be applied and the method in which they should be carried out.
At the one extreme we have been urged to recommend the creation of a super-authority governing the entire water area from the Broomielaw to Camp- beltown and Stranraer, to discharge the duties of port authority, and also to accept responsibility for the development of tourist and holiday traffic in the Clyde resorts, and for the whole problem of ferries, piers, fishing harbours and communication throughout the estuary and its tributary lochs, in addition to several plans for the creation of entirely new ocean terminals of national status, and a sea-plane base.
At the other extreme we have been challenged to show what increase in efficiency or economy or other benefit is to be anticipated from any material interference with the status quo.
Intermediate between these extremes we have had presented to us numerous suggestions for a limited administrative unification, mainly confined to the river and upper estuary as far down as the Cumbraes, but no farther.
The sources from which these differing views have been derived are not easily susceptible of exact classification but the position may be summarised thus:-
VIEWS OF THE MAJOR CLYDE AUTHORITIES AND INTERESTS.
(90) The Clyde Navigation Trustees consider that shipping and navigational services as a whole in the Clyde Area would be facilitated, and administra- tion simplified, if one Port Authority had full responsibility for the harbours, docks and water areas on the River Clyde and its tributaries between Albert
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