As a result of excessive water running from redundant neighbouring sites, compounded by heavy rainfall, Tees Dock Road was closed to inbound and outbound traffic from 1630 on Wednesday 20th January and reopened at 0900 on Thursday 21st January.
Tees Dock Road is a public road and not under the ownership of PD Ports. The Company has a close working relationship with the owners, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC) and we have invested significantly in our resources, which we can deploy in order to provide support to RCBC during such events.
Our engineers, security team and Harbour Police worked tirelessly throughout the night in the face of tough weather conditions to reopen the road, enabling RCBC to focus on life-critical incidents elsewhere as a result of the widespread regional flooding.
Port operations were temporarily affected during this time and have since recommenced.
RCBC has gone to great lengths in recent weeks to address the issue of blocked gullies as a result of debris flowing from the redundant neighbouring sites, which are not under the ownership of PD Ports, and on to Tees Dock Road. Unless the outstanding land maintenance issues are urgently addressed by the owners of the neighbouring land, the risk of major flooding, remains serious.
This is something we are addressing with RCBC and we are appealing to the owner of the redundant neighbouring sites to rectify the outstanding land maintenance issues urgently.
Jerry Hopkinson
COO & Vice Chairman, PD Ports
