London Gateway

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London Gateway
Berths 1, 2 and 3 at London Gateway
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Location
Country	United Kingdom
Location	Thurrock, Essex
Coordinates	51°30′19″N 0°29′25″E / 51.5052°N 0.4902°E / 51.5052; 0.4902
UN/LOCODE	GBLGP
Details
Opened	2013
Owned by	DP World
Type of harbour	Deep water
No. of berths	3
Statistics
Website Official website

DP World London Gateway is a port within the wider Port of London, on the north bank of the River Thames in Thurrock, Essex. Opened in November 2013, the site is a fully integrated logistics facility, consisting of a semi-automated deep-sea container terminal which is on the same site as a land bank for the development of warehousing, distribution facilities, and ancillary logistics services.

The facility is located 30 miles (48 km) east of central London. The deep-water port is able to handle some of the largest container ships in the world. On a weekly basis, the port is now linked with 51 countries and more than 90 ports all over the world, including Asia, Australia, the US, South America, Africa, India, and Southern Europe. The largest ships anchor off Suffolk to await the pilot vessel from Harwich to escort them to London Gateway through the shifting sands off Essex.

Undertaken by DP World, the new facility significantly increased the capabilities and efficiencies of the Port of London to handle container shipping,^[1] to help meet the growing demand for container handling at Britain's ports.^{[citation needed]} Construction began in February 2010,^[2] with the port and logistics park being completed in stages. Three berths were initially completed, with the potential for the development of three more; DP World in 2021 announced that it would build a fourth berth.^[3] The first phase of the port opened for business on 6 November 2013 with the docking of the 58,000-tonne MOL Caledon, loaded with fruit and wine from South Africa.^[4][5]

Development of the Logistics Park followed the initial stages of development of the port. UPS opened a new 32,000-square-metre package-sorting facility on the site in 2018 – one of the American firm's largest-ever infrastructure investments outside of the US.^[6] Since March 2017, German grocery retailer Lidl has been operating out of the DP World London Gateway Logistics Centre, the first warehouse to be developed on the site.

Annual capacity of the port is 3.5 million containers (TEU); 2021 throughput was 1.8 million TEU, and continues to increase.