A British shipyard is closing. A&P Tees is a five-acre site in northeast England primarily focused on ship repair with two drydocks and 240 m of jetty frontage. A&P has two other yards in England.
Shipbuilding has taken place at the former Smiths Dock site since the early 1900s. A&P took over the location in 2003 following the collapse of Cammell Laird.
Workers at the Tees facility are being offered jobs at another nearby A&P yard.
The UK government unveiled a £4bn ($5.16bn) plan two years ago to revitalise UK shipbuilding and coastal communities through its National Shipbuilding Strategy Refresh.
As an aside, when A&P opened some 100 years ago , before WW1, the UK produced about 90 per cent of the world’s commercial vessels (by tonnage.) By the early 1960s, with the emergence of Japanese yards, and then later Chinese and South Korean, the UK produced about 10 per cent. Now the whole of Europe produces about 2 per cent. About ten years ago there was a year when British yards did not complete a single commercial ship. Most of that commercial shipping is cruise ships built in Italy. However, military warship construction is still strong.
After WWII Westminster gave all our big name ship building companies to America.
Just so happens that for a long time America had feared the British navy and the British ability to build ships as Americas largest foreign existential threat. America had run war games where they practiced for UK naval attacks on America, it’s all documented. Look up War Plan Red from around 1920’s 1930’s.
Now they take all our oil and gold for peanuts.
But how did we ‘give’ our shipbuilding companies away. Surely they were simply unable to compete?
India can join take over this facility yo built commercial ships And Military ship Rebuilding as Technology and work force competence available 👍 ready
U. Right bro.european lagging in ship building dry dock and even crewing
It’s taken over rby China india Singapore South Korea and Japan
Commercial ship building is no more viable business
They vould build the RFAs for the navy instead of Korea , the RN is there to protect the UK but it should support us by saving jobs and the skill sets at Tees.
Million wasted in visits and accomodation in Korea whils ships are built
And the military ships are mainly non European built in places like Korea.
It closed or is it up for sale?
National Shipbuilding Strategy now will convince to this plundered workers that the privations now demanded of them will not redound to the benefit of fatten bank accounts abroad!
With the rise of China and threat of war with Russia, what on earth is wrong with the British Government? Russia has a smaller economy than Italy yet has over four times the ships and combat planes Britain does. Parliament printed half a trillion pounds for locking down the entire economy, but can’t spend a hundred billion a year to defend the assets of the 6th richest country in the world. There is no reason in the world Britain can’t have a fleet as large as Russia’s, and if the world is this dangerous it is imperative that she does. Fund the Navy- order ships, raise pay, loosen recruitment standards, and lay off the woke nonsense.
Ships are obsolete in modern warfare. They are only good against unarmed 3rd world countries.
This is now the age of the missile and drones. Ships are slow and easy large targets, they were bad enough in WWII for Uboat target practice.
why can’t these floating platforms carry a few hundred drones, instead of a couple of missiles?
Good statement . 100%
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ruined British manufacturing by bringing in china creating a world economy without tarrifs Britain can never compete on price because of the cost of living in England the rich got richer and the poor got poorer
Denis, agreed. 1988 was the end for Britain. Quality was out the window, food size shrank while prices increased. UK companies were smashed and thrown to the vultures. Thatcher and Reagan did more damage to the West than 1940’s Germany could ever dream of in all their several years of Luftwaffe bombing campaigns.
Then there was the drug problem they created by secretly shipping cocaine into our nations, while pretending to have a “war on drugs”, “just say no kids”… Oliver North, Reagan, Clinton and Thatcher got away with murder, international drug and weapon trafficking. How soon people forget the Iran Contra. There was a reason they looked after their buddy general Pinochet. There even looked after Saddam whil he was convenient to them. Nobody talks about the RAF spy planes he allowed to land in Iraq during the Cold War era, or where he got the weapons from to gas a lot of people.
Detroit is still suffering from Reagan and Mitt Romney to this day !
The people deserve the politicians they get if they allow criminal politicians to run our nations.
We have more to worry about regarding our own corrupt political system than any foreign State as it currently stands. The more they get away with, the worse they get, and nobody cares !? Crazy nation.
Wrong. The quality of British engineering-management and political-journalist class destroyed Britain. By 1970’s UK had the per capita income of 2/3 of Federal German Republic, Germany that was destroyed 25 years before.
My father visited England in 1978 and said he saw people asking for money in streets, he was shocked since for him England was a sort of civilization standard.
Clement Atlee and all interventionist Governments and the media culture destroyed Britain. Thatcher at least put a ressemblance of arithmetic’s in Britain…but even then it was impossible to stop the destructive pop-marxist culture deconstruction.
You cannot be a an engineering powerhouse when all your culture tells you to not be precise in your endeavours and language, nor value quality or value competency.
Britain will be a Euro-Lebanon and you will continue to say Thatcher was bad…no Thatcher was the least worse…
The only good thing that Thatcher ever did was to send a task force to retake the Falkland Islands and they even nearly f***ed that up cutting the navy, army and everything think else pandering to the American’s
We are a country that depends on maritime trade, from 90% of world shipping being built here in 1900 to 0% now is unbelievable. Weather commercial or military we should be at the forefront of modern shipbuilding. With the coming of AI and robots now is the time to be investing in this kind of thing as the cost of labour will no longer be a issue. Going forward we need to invest in shipbuilding and other forms of manufacturing to become once again truthfully a world power.
The Asians (Chinese & Japanese) learned modern ship building techniques from the French & British, plus naval skills too. The Chinese Communists have been shown to be untrustworthy with continuous espionage against the West, the stealing of secrets, sensitive innovation & creative technology through the Chinese Communists overseas students, in whichever way possible, through university students & their hands on field studies within their chosen industries. This exchange – sealing of innovation & creative technology has to stop before all is lost & it’s too late. The Chinese Communists will shortly have the largest Navy & Air Force in the world, that’s if they don’t have already. God help has all, as hell & all is about to be unleashed onto the world.
Sadly we are an island with no seamen, no shipping, no British registered ships with British crews onboard, very sad for an island. All of the military services need British shipping and what do the war mongering puppet politicians do, sack all seaman and out source shipping
I couldn’t agree more! How sad it is to watch the demise of our country, whilst countless governments show no loyalty or patriotism at all but line their own greedy pockets. How sad it is to watch the demise of the country I love that, so many brave men and women fought for our freedoms and the sacrifices they had made were all for nothing in my eyes. How great is Great Britain today in the grand scheme of things worldwide. An army no bigger than my action man collection! A navy the size of a packet of John players navy cut! An airforce with about as much hot air as me on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night out after a curry! (Although I do believe Ryan Air has more planes!) I live in London and can honestly say I’m ashamed how westminster does not distribute things equally in this country. Once upon a time the North was the powerhouse powering this country, sadly today its forgotten about, along with the people, for which I cannot forget about. My love of the North, especially the North East of England and proud the people are in those parts, decent, hardworking people, whom have my total respect and love! And those decent genuine people up and down our great land, I too have much love and respect for. My final thought is this, Ireland needs to leave the E.U become its own independent country again and join Great Britain in becoming a union with us but ruled by the Irish government. United we’re stronger, divided we’re weaker. ❤️🇬🇧❤️🇮🇪❤️🙏
Witness the latest debacle, new Scilly Isles ferry contract given to a French company who then sub the build to China!! Absolute disgrace, small ships like this could easily be built here, or at least in Europe. Absolutely no reason for this!!
Are you sure?
Are there workers available for that endeavour? are the rules and regulations allow profits? are the education appropriate? Are the taxes for anything that moves reasonable? What are the necessary investments, certifications etc etc . costs?
A shipyards to make sense have to last several decades. Does exists that culture?
Perhaps the way things are going with China & Korea if as it looks like Russia & all other communist countries might start a war somewhere other than Ukraine that doesn’t have a military force strong enough then any ships for the west will enter Russian or Chinese service. And the west will have to build ships again & fast so likely USA & Canada will have to build the bulk of it for the Western nations
Too late to rescue our shipbuilding industry….all the design and construction skills have gone so even if the political will was in favour the guys at the sharp end have retired or died.