PORT bosses ABP are failing their major customers - the big commercial shipping lines - by not providing a deeper channel to access Southampton Water, according to an opponent of plans for a new container terminal at Dibden Bay .

At the public inquiry into ABP's scheme to build the £750m terminal just upstream from Hythe, local residents' representative David Wolfe lived up to his name. He verbally savaged harbour master Captain Jimmy Chestnutt for several hours, accusing him of a lack of forward planning to cope with increasing demands on the busy waterway.

Capt Chestnutt, ABP's main witness on the topic of Navigation, said they had no intention of applying to government to deepen the main channel, even if the Dibden Bay terminal went ahead.

But Mr Wolfe, for the Residents against Dibden Bay Port (RadBP) said the commercial appeal of the Port of Southampton was restricted because the present channel - at 12.6 metres deep - is too shallow for the biggest modern vessels to travel along in comfort.

"The message is 'slow down' to Southampton," he told the inquiry.

"There is no point in getting there early because you will be stuck by tidal restrictions. Commercial advantage is being constrained and it will get worse unless you dredge."

Mr Wolfe said Southampton would lose out in competition with ports like Felixstowe, where the "high tide window" was greater, allowing the biggest ships more flexibility.

"It is inevitable that if Southampton is going to compete globally, you will be under pressure to dredge. Our position is that you should be putting in for one now," said Mr Wolfe.

Capt Chestnutt agreed that a dredge was "possible, even likely, but not necessarily in the context of Dibden Bay."

"There is no commercial demand for a dredge of the main channel at the moment. I don't know what new customers will come to Southampton and what ships they will run. If there is a demand for a dredge we will ask for one," he said.

"We provide a service based on what we know we can handle. If it is not adequate I have no doubt someone will tell me."

But Mr Wolfe said that companies were already coping with restricted flexibility, and ships were having to queue outside the mouth of Southampton Water until the tide rose sufficiently to allow them to enter.

Proceeding.