P&O Irish Sea has welcomed the announcement of improvements to the A77 by First Minister, Jack McConnell. As the largest freight carrier on Loch Ryan, P&O Irish Sea, in conjunction with the North Channel Partnership, has lobbied for improvements to the A77 and A75 for many years.
Denis Galway, Director of P&O Irish Sea and Managing Director, Port of Larne comments: “The success of our business is a combination of a number of factors including fast, reliable ships, short crossing times, high frequency of sailing, high quality ports and easy access to and from them. P&O Irish Sea has invested over £80m in new vessels on our Cairnryan-Larne route in recent years which offers up to 24 crossings per day with crossings of 60 minutes or 105 minutes. The planned improvements to the A77 and A75, key access routes to our Port at Cairnryan will complement our investment and can only serve to make this route more attractive in the longer term.”
P&O Irish Sea’s Cairnryan-Larne service is vital link between Scotland and Ireland for both freight and tourist customers with almost 200,000 freight units and 160,000 tourist vehicles choosing this route in 2002.
Graham McCullough General Manager for P&O Irish Sea Scottish routes adds: “We are the largest freight carrier on Loch Ryan, recording an increase of 9% in the number of freight units using the Larne-Cairnryan route in 2002. Our Passenger Operation increased the number of tourist vehicles by 8.5% and passengers by 4.5% on the route in the same period. The increase in both our freight and tourist traffic was achieved against difficult market conditions, a strong indication that our Larne-Cairnryan service is a firm favourite with both groups of customers. With the improved roads network, I am confident that this route will continue to grow.”
The improvements to the A77 and A75 are mirrored in Northern Ireland by a programme of improvements to the A8, Belfast to Larne network which began in 2002.