PORT bosses have revealed ambitious plans to ramp up activity at Greenock Ocean Terminal by over a quarter and increase cruise traffic.

The waterfront facility run by Peel has developed over the years, adding tourism to its core container work, and a £19m project to extend it has created a new 200m floating cruise jetty which will be followed by a dedicated terminal for cruise passengers.

Now the container ships side of the business is set for a revamp to enable it to handle more traffic and boost business.

The terminal has had to weather the storms of Brexit and the coronavirus crisis which saw the entire schedule of cruise calls wiped out last year.

But new Clydeport chief Jim McSporran believes much more use can be made of the facility.

He became port director at Clydeport five months ago in the middle of the major disruption but says it was immediately apparent that the Patrick Street site has huge potential.

Mr McSporran says he is 'really impressed' with the team at the port and its fellow sites.

As the largest facility of its type on the west coast, Ocean Terminal deals in imports and exports to Europe and America and handles other inter-continental traffic.

Mr McSporran believes it is ideally placed to capitalise on changes brought by Britain's exit from the European Union, such as the congestion which has developed at Dover and other ports.

He says the Government has produced an infrastructure package to help places such as Greenock deal with excess capacity and grow.

Plans are in place to revamp the way container lorries move around the terminal and bring in a new layout.

Mr McSporran said: “We’ve prepared for that, looking at traffic management, how we can get more throughput.

"We have taken on the overspill, including from the east coast of Scotland, without missing a beat.

“Our plan is to grow throughput on the site by 25 or 30 per cent without also growing its footprint, by improving the traffic management and layout to create more space for trucks and containers.

"We’re also co-operating in new border-post facilities, a project that’s under way and will be complete by mid-2021.”

Greenock Ocean Terminal is the only gateway on Scotland’s west coast that allows deep sea vessels to come alongside, and work to install its second berth floating pontoon finished last year.

Mr McSporran believes this key piece of additional infrastructure - along with the terminal's existing attractions of easy access to the motorway, airport, rail network and presence of experienced staff - mean that cruise activity can be increased significantly.

He said: “When I arrived, the terminal was handling an average of 75 cruise ships per year, which surprised me, as ports such as Belfast, Dublin and Lerwick have more.

"I would argue that Glasgow and the many other attractions in a 25-mile radius of Greenock have much more to offer passengers."

A total of 80 cruise ship visits, including the return of Cunard's iconic Queen Mary 2, were booked for 2020 before the season was wrecked entirely by Covid-19.

Top port official Mr McSporran says his target is to take that figure up to 100 initially, once restrictions are lifted and the cruise industry returns.

But he added: “My further target is higher than that.

“We can do more, and with support from Inverclyde Council, we’ve invested in building the dedicated floating cruise jetty, a fantastic piece of engineering just to the east of Ocean Terminal.

“Until last year we were bringing cruise ships alongside container ships – which wasn’t the most efficient way of doing it – and this new jetty will help us achieve our ambitions to initially attract 100 cruise ships to Greenock and the Clyde."