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Displaying items by tag: Report Brexit Effect

The impact of Brexit across many sectors in the South West, in particular in agriculture, finance, and industry is revealed in a new report that shows Cork’s long history of trade with Europe has helped to cushion the worst effects of Brexit for the city and the wider region.

The report, ‘Cork and the Brexit Effect’, published by University College Cork, looked at Brexit’s consequences for the Cork region.

It was developed with local business, the tourism sector, higher education, and arts and culture stakeholders across Cork.

The report noted that relations and links between Cork, the North, and the UK have been affected by the fallout from Brexit.

It showed, however, that while visits to the Republic of Ireland from Britain and the North fell following Brexit, the Cork region was comparatively less affected by shifting tourist numbers than other parts of Ireland.

The report also suggests that Brexit has presented Cork with new opportunities and highlights how, since Brexit, the Port of Cork has seen its number of direct shipping routes to continental Europe increase as producers look to avoid the UK land-bridge.

EchoLive has more on the report that also examines aspects on the EU’s second-largest English-speaking city

Published in Port of Cork

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).