HI-TECH helps to make Southampton safer than the average port and it will remain so even if a new container terminal is built at Dibden Bay - so says Captain Jimmy Chestnutt of Associated British Ports.

ABP chose to relaunch its terminal-building campaign after the summer recess by firing off one of its biggest guns - Capt Chestnutt, Southampton's Harbour Master and an RN officer for 30 years.

He fights the ABP corner at the public inquiry this week on the topic of navigation in and around Southampton Water, 9.2 miles of double-tided channel travelled by nearly 60,000 large ships a year, as well as thousands of pleasure boats. Objectors to the £750m container terminal development say it would add to the number of massive vessels using the waterway - which narrows to 200m at one point - and can only be a recipe for disaster.

But Capt Chestnutt asserts that modern technology on ships and ashore can keep Southampton Water safe.

"The key to efficient management of the harbour is pre-planning and co-ordination, good communication between pilots on board and the new upgraded computerised tracking system," he said.

"The system, called PAVIS, works in precisely the way that airports operate. It can monitor the progress of a large number of vessels and alert the operator to potential conflicts and dangers.

"Vessels do not arrive at random times. They are carefully programmed."

Capt Chestnutt said a new terminal at Dibden Bay will not need extra dredging of the main deepwater channel.

"Dredging will be required to remove the intertidal area in front of the Dibden Bay Reclaim but this activity will take place outside the main channel. Its impact on shipping movements - from dinghy sailing to commercial vessels - will be negligible," he said.

ABP had consulted the Royal Yachting Association and Red Funnel Ferries on the idea of creating a special channel just for small boats, but both groups have now decided that a "dinghy lane" would have too many disadvantages. And in a letter sent to the inquiry yesterday the RYA said they were withdrawing all their objections to the proposals except one - their worries over increased traffic at the turning point into Southampton Water, where container ships, some as long as 345 metres, halt and change direction to enter the narrow deep channel.

But not all ABP's opponents are backing down.

Paul Vickers, chairman of the protest group Residents against Dibden Bay Port (RadBP) said outside the inquiry that their representative would be taking issue with Capt Chestnutt on several points.

"The double tide is not a benefit to Southampton. Unless the tide is high, really big ships can't get in. They need a dredge of the main channel and they have not applied for permission," he said.

Mr Vickers was cock-a-hoop at yesterday's announcement that consultation has begun on plans for another potential rival to the Dibden Bay scheme - at Hunterston in Scotland.

"Hunterston used to be an iron ore port, it has natural deep water which will never need dredging and it has 15 per cent unemployment so local people want it. It has few of the disadvantages of Dibden Bay," he said.