Corporation Secretary Roger Sherratt has thrown his weight behind plans to allow stripping of containers away from Hamilton docks to cut down on growing congestion.

Government is considering legislation this coming winter to ease laws requiring warehousing to be restricted to St. George's and Hamilton before goods are released by customs.

Mr. Sherratt told a meeting of retailers at Number One Shed that change was desperately needed.

He said: “Congestion is a large problem on the docks. The corporation supports this change in the legislation.

“The vast majority of goods come in 20-foot containers. They can sit on the docks for five free days, then a fee is charged.”

Late last month the Corporation began telling importers to move road trailers after five days and Mr. Sherratt said it had worked well.

He said: “We might further reduce the free time, it might be less than five days, and increase storage fees after that to get them moved quicker.”

He said 20 percent of the goods were stripped on the dock. “But it takes a disproportionate amount of space on the docks.”

Mr. Sherratt said an outside expert had been proved right when he warned the Corporation ten years ago that congestion would grow if things were not done differently.

“Things are very, very congested on the docks, particularly during the busy times so something has to be done to change things.”

“It will be very expensive to store on the docks after the free time and difficult to store for the free time.”

He said world-wide very few docks allowed stripping of goods on the waterfront and the need for a change in Bermuda was even greater which had probably the most valuable waterfront in the world.

“Things have got to change. One of the things which will change is the fee for stripping cargo.

If it takes place somewhere else it might ease the burden.”

He said some people were calling for the docks to be taken out of Hamilton but that would be very expensive. Instead he said the Corporation was likely to sanction Stevedoring Services raising their fees which had been kept artificially low and if operations were moved out of the city private enterprise could charge whatever they wanted.

He said: “Stevedoring Services should charge exactly what it would cost to strip containers.” Assistant Collector of Customs Larry Conn said he had experience of docks around the world and Bermuda's was very efficient. Some retailers at the meeting said moving goods to another site would add trucking costs which they would have to bear.