Port’s role highly valued by businesses and communities in Pembrokeshire
The Port of Milford Haven’s role as a champion attracting new trade and investment to Pembrokeshire is widely supported by businesses and the public according to a new survey released in October 2016.
Whilst the Port’s key roles of ensuring safety of shipping and preventing pollution were expected to be widely understood and endorsed, an encouraging 85% of respondents also recognised its role reinvesting profits into the business to promote economic prosperity and create jobs in the county.
Andy Edwards, board director and chairman of the Port’s Stakeholder Accountability Committee welcomed the results. “This represents strong acknowledgement among people in Pembrokeshire of the work the Port does,” Andy said. “Our role ensuring safe navigation and looking after the interests of waterway users has always been widely known and understood. However we are proud of our role as a catalyst for economic growth in the region” he continued. “We are very pleased that role is so widely endorsed by the people who matter: our stakeholders who live and work around the waterway.”
Elsewhere in the survey, carried out by Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum, there was wide backing for the Port to invest in sea based tourism (80%) and manage recreation on the Milford Haven Waterway (77%). There was also a large increase in the numbers of people aware of the community work that the Port does (up from 24% in 2009 to 75% in 2016).
“There is plenty of useful feedback in this year’s survey,” said Andy. “Whilst 94% of our stakeholders believe we are average, good or very good at looking after shipping, 54% believe we are doing an average, good or very good job in promoting land-based tourism,” he explained. “39% were unsure of our performance in this area and whilst we are working hard to promote Milford Haven as a great tourism destination within Pembrokeshire, we clearly have work to do to make a bigger difference. We are conscious that our redevelopment plans for Milford have been talked about for some time. But now, after a lot of work behind the scenes talking directly to the market, they’re starting to gain momentum. Getting agreements from businesses like Costa strengthens our own confidence that the Milford Waterfront development will have a positive impact on the economy of Milford Haven in the near future.”
The full survey report can be downloaded from the Port’s website: www.mhpa.co.uk/stakeholder-survey-results-2016/