SOUTHAMPTON is to get a fifth cruise terminal as experts predict the city will see a doubling in passenger numbers over the next decade, the Daily Echo can reveal.

The new, purpose built arrivals and departures centre is to be developed to help cope with the two million people now expected to be using the port in a few years’ time.

Designs are already being drawn up on a plan that will transform the waterfront skyline of the city, the Daily Echo understands.

The new terminal will be larger than any of the existing buildings in the port to cope with bigger cruise ships, carrying many thousands of passengers.

A spokesman for Associated British Ports (ABP), owners and operators of Southampton Docks, refused to be drawn on speculation that space within the city’s Western Docks has already been earmarked as the site of the new quayside terminal.

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However, it is known behind the scenes talks have already taken place between shipping lines and the port authorities as the city prepares for its biggest trade growth in years.

Major international operators are turning their backs on rival UK ports and are now queuing up to bring their vessels to Southampton, which will see more than 300 separate calls by cruise ships this year.

This figure will dramatically increase to about 360 in 2011 and, if the city’s cruise industry continues to expand at its present rate, this could even rise to 400 during the next four years.

Last year ABP poured £19m into building the Ocean Terminal in the Eastern Docks but the new development would cost more due to the complex equipment now needed to handle the new breed of mega-cruise ships, which are such a familiar sight in Southampton.

Already Southampton handles the vast majority of voyages beginning and ending in the UK, but the arrival of the Mediterranean Shipping Company, better known as MSC, in the city next year will push the port further up the premier league of major cruise centres.

Micky Arison, the chairman of Carnival Corporation, parent company of Southampton based Cunard, P&O Cruises, and Princess Cruises, the most influential man in cruising, says Southampton will play a major role in future growth.

“The biggest change for cruising in the UK over the next ten years will be that it will become just like North America, offering cruises of just about any length and suitable for just about everyone,”

said Mr Arison.

“The increasing choice of itinerary and cruise styles will help ensure the recent rapid growth in the number of UK cruise passengers will continue. There has been a pattern in the growth of cruising which has seen the North American market run five to ten years ahead of the UK so I can see no reason why it should not double in size to match the kind of growth the market has experienced in North America.”

This would mean the British taking three million cruises every year compared with the 1.55 million in 2009.

This expansion will bring a boost to the city’s economy as passenger numbers double.

At the same time, the city’s present transport system will need radical changes if roads around the docks are not to become gridlocked with the extra traffic bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the port.