Port of Felixstowe — Local services in East Suffolk

Crap 90% of the time.

Not sure whether it’s policy or the volition of individual crane drivers, but moving the crane from one place to another is an anathema to these people.

The amount of time us drivers spend waiting for cranes to move to us is a joke. Crane drivers would rather sit and wait for 5-10 mins in anticipation of another vehicle coming to that location than take 30 seconds to roll over to your location. I’ve sat waiting for nearly 30 mins now, with a crane less than 20 locations away and in that time he has unloaded 2 boxes.

The government keeps talking about productivity levels dropping but it’s not from our side. So long as Felixstowe exists in its current state, we’ll keep doing our 15 hour days.

I’ve been lucky enough to live within a stone’s throw of two major ports in SE Asia - Klang and Singapore. And whilst I’ve not had reason to enter either, both appear to operate with much more efficiency than this place.

It’s a national embarrassment that this is the UK’s...

Absolute joke, lazy crane and forklift operators, they just sit there and look at you doing nothing or at best they will come lift off a box only to put it elsewhere and then go in break or change of shift, which by the way takes 30 minutes, 15 for the one to go out 15 for the other in to go in… service desk sometimes is helpful but most of the times will just cut it saying they have between 1 and 3hrs time to sort you out… by their bright minds you should spend 1 day in docks to take your box, next day deliver and another day to return it… the so called “automated” cranes are in fact remote operated from a person with a joystick from an office, 1 joystick operator does all the cranes that are in that lane, if 3 cranes then gameboy will do one crane at a time… awful service is too little to say… prepare your nerves to spend 1hr in temporary holding area before actually start the above mentioned journey…...

If you’re a lorry driver and your day is going a bit too nicely, pop into this place and change all that.

If you’re lucky you’ll get to spend at least an hour and a half, bursting for the loo, in Landguard’s exquisite THA, enjoying the varying types of chain linked fences. Or alternatively, sit for an hour watching a broken down crane or, on at least 10 occasions per day, sit and contemplate where it all went wrong whilst the crane drivers spend 40 minutes changing over.

There are myriad ways you could waste your life here! But my personal favourite, is trying over and over again to scan my hand using outdated technology on the way into the port. Endless fun for those that anticipate an afterlife or reincarnation.

For the rest of us that realise our time is precious -...