FIRST it was Southampton’s cruise ships – now Liverpool is aiming to hijack a slice of the port’s container trade.

Not content with trying to pirate Southampton’s cruising industry, the northern city is now poised to receive a further cash handout enabling it to tempt container ships away from the south.

Taxpayers’ money, thought to total £30m, now looks likely to be poured into a major dredging project allowing giant container ships, like those which berth in Southampton, to negotiate the River Mersey.

Leader of Southampton City Council, Royston Smith, described Whitehall’s decision to hand over the Government money as “inexplicable’’.

Mr Smith said: “I shall be certainly contacting the Government requesting clarification as to why this public money should be going to fund the dredging of the Mersey.’’ This comes as Southampton anxiously waits for the Government decision on whether or not Liverpool will be successful in its bid to become a “turnaround’’ port for cruise ships.

While Liverpool has been in receipt of public money, all Southampton’s quayside developments have been the result of private investment by Associated British Ports, owners and operators of the city’s docks.

There are now demands Liverpool should pay back all public money, and compete with ports such as Southampton on “a level playing field’’.

The local Liverpool borough of nearby Sefton has won conditional backing from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) to pay for the deepening of the River Mersey by 52 feet.

Dredging the Mersey is seen as crucial to plans by Peel Ports to construct a new £210m river terminal at Liverpool.

Once dredged, huge container ships, at present unable to access the river due to the lack of depth, will be free to make calls at the terminal, which could be in operation by 2014.

In recent months, Whitehall has been the target of intense lobbying on behalf of Southampton Docks, and other ports up and down the country. The Government has been urged to resist Liverpool’s cruise ship plans as originally the Merseyside city received millions of pounds in public funding to establish a small passenger terminal, on the condition it would not be used for turn-around calls.

Now Liverpool wants to pay back just a small fraction of the original £21m and overturn this condition imposed by the EU.