Importers and shipping lines are demanding something be done to ease the congestion at the Island?s docks after goods to be sold for Cup Match remained trapped on the docks over the holiday weekend.

Analyses show that the cargo volume growth rate is running at 60 percent above the average this year over the past six years, and a report from 2002 stated that if Shed Eight was removed and different cargo handling put into place, dock capacity could be increased by 76 percent. Several other reports carried out since 1991 have called for the removal of the sheds from the docks.

A report commissioned by the Corporation of Hamilton by Paul F. Richardson Associates (PFRA) stated: ?It is the consensus of all associated with the docks that the time has come to develop specific plan for the removal of the LCL (less than container load) shed from the docks?. The PRFA report is now more than four years old.

The ultimate need to relocate the LCL shed off the docks to free up space for additional container operations was first identified in the Joseph N. Barbera Associates report from 1991.

The docks capacity of 17,500 loaded containers per year was breached back in 1999 and the projected figure for 2004 is 22,500 containers.

The PFRA report from four years ago stated that if none of its recommendations were implemented, Shed Eight will have to be removed within five or six years assuming a cargo increase of three percent per year. Between 1997 and 2003 the average growth rate was 5.5 percent, and this year the average growth rate is just under nine percent.

?I have stuff for Cup Match that?s just sitting down there,? Music Box owner Eddy DeMello said last week.

?When you leave the stuff down there over a few days (the Corporation) charge you for it,? he said. However when importers are unable to collect their goods as the containers have not yet been stripped, he said, the fault should lay with the Corporation of Hamilton.

?You should be able to charge them for every day that it?s down there. When they have your stuff you have no recourse. You should be able to sue.

?I have two shipments down there right now, and that?s a few thousand dollars? loss of sales. I have chairs and various other things like that, that we normally sell for the game. I just called down there and they said they haven?t got to it yet.

?They really need to do something about it. Management down there needs to be changed.?