Welsh Journals

THE CHANGING ROLE OF SOUTH WALES PORTS. DAVID HILLING HILLING, David. 1985: The Changing Role of South Wales Ports. Cambria Vol. 12 (2), pp. 43 to pp. 60. Part II of Davies, W.K.D. (ed) Human Geography from Wales: Proceedings of the E.G. Bowen Memorial Conference. ISSN 0306-9796. For much of its history, the South Wales port system was unstabilised and comprised numerous, mainly unsophisticated facilities engaged almost entirely in Western Seaways trade. During the 19th century port activity became consolidated in a new system of 'docks' with a global trading role. Recent changes in the direction of national trade, developments in cargo handling, changing hinterland transport links and changing patterns of industry and energy consumption have rendered large parts of the South Wales port system redundant. Port activity has changed, dockland areas are being redeployed and overall the ports have reverted to a Western Seaways role. David Hilling, Dept. of Geography, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College,University of London, Egham Hill, London, Surrey, U.K. TW20 OEX. As a transport facility at the interface between land and sea space, the port is one element in a series of interacting systems of great complexity and openness. As in the case of other transport services, operations at ports will reflect demand derived from other areas of activity and it follows that the fortunes of individual ports and the port systems in which they combine will reflect a wide spectrum of economic, technical, social and political influences. However, the process of interaction is by no means one way and in their development ports are both the effect and cause of changes in other sectors. Often these cause-effect relationships are not easily disentangled, even where, as in South Wales, there has clearly been a direct link between port expansion and the wider processes of transport, industrial and urban development. What is certain is that the relationship is a dynamic one and the history of ports is one of constantly changing fortunes as there is continual adjustment to the demands of trade (Jackson 1983). These adjustments may take place within ports, producing changes in their internal geography, or between ports, leading to the re-structuring of port systems. Not surprisingly, there have been numerous attempts to analyse or model such temporal changes in the geography of port activity what have been called 'historico-genetic' seaport studies (Bird 1984). It is not the object of this paper to repeat such a systematic exercise (McCarthy 1969) but rather to adopt a broader, more reflective approach to the changing role and connections of South Wales ports.