Why not Freo?

The Fremantle Inner Harbour currently has access to 180 hectares of land for all trade operations, including non-container trades.

The area around Fremantle Port is highly commercial and urbanised, with little to no available land for importers, exporters and major logistics operators to expand their operations to meet growing trade.

Moving operations further out from Fremantle is not desirable. Container staging facilities need to be located adjacent to container terminals to make the loading, unloading and movement of containers fast and efficient.

The constraints around land availability in and around the port will become apparent with the levels of trade expected around 2040.

Expansion of container trade activities could occur through land reclamation, or the relocation of private businesses. However, this would be expensive and disruptive in the busy urban area of Fremantle, and would still not secure the space required by industry from the 2050s and onwards.

Fremantle’s harbour can only accept vessels carrying up to 12,000 TEU containers, due to its width and depth. However, from 2030 onwards, container ships with a capacity of up to 14,000 TEU containers are expected to be introduced globally on routes.

Given Fremantle Port’s size limitations, those ships would need to bypass Perth as they are unable to berth, which will mean goods coming to WA would need to find alternative routes, such as alternative routes from the east coast, and ferried in on smaller ships. This will reduce the efficiency of the supply chain and increases the costs of doing business. 

By the early 2050s, its predicted that 2 million TEU of containers will be arriving and leaving WA. To manage the growth over the next two decades, Fremantle’s infrastructure and assets would require significant and disruptive upgrades, which would still not secure the long-term viability of Fremantle.

Potential major works, beginning in the 2030s, would include major berth reconstruction, terminal expansions, the redevelopment or acquisition of land, repurposing land and space within the port precinct, and shifting existing businesses and facilities.

A second tranche of even larger expansions would be then needed to get Fremantle past 2050, including land reclamation for new outer berths, major dredging, a new breakwater, and a major reconfiguration of the port infrastructure, which would still not resolve many issues or inefficiencies Fremantle is facing.

Beyond the Port itself, major road and rail upgrades would be required to accommodate growth in both container trucks and commuter traffic. For example, there are 16 sets of traffic lights and rail crossing between the Port and Kwinana Freeway via Stirling and Leach Highways.

This route already suffers major congestion and delays, costing $31 million each year and growing. At a minimum, the duplication of Stirling Bridge and development of a new interchange at Leach Highway and Stock Road could be brought forward to mitigate these bottlenecks, however this would not resolve many other points of congestion or the growing issue of safety on the route.

The single-line freight rail link to Fremantle Port is also shared with commuter rail traffic, reducing the number of trains that can run in a day. To avoid capacity limits by the mid-2030s, the rail bridge over the Swan River would need to be duplicated, which would only provide extra capacity to the mid-2040s. Rail capacity cannot be reasonably expanded beyond this time as the line which runs through central Fremantle, would require tunnelling and be prohibitively expensive.

The result of these large works programs, similar to that port development proposed at Kwinana, would still leave Fremantle operating at a less than optimal level, meaning WA would have an efficient and expensive Port with ongoing major constraints.

Community and safety are important considerations in Fremantle. The port is situated within a growing, cosmopolitan coastal city that will be home to 45,000 people by 2046.

There are amenity and safety challenges in accommodating a significantly larger port, more heavy rail services and greater truck movements, that would be required in Fremantle, to cope with growing trade.

Under a moderate trade scenario, Fremantle Port would need to accommodate more than double the current truck movements by 2051, with some 3,500 trucks per day requiring access to and from the port. These trucks would also be interacting with almost twice the level of general traffic over the same period, as compared to today’s traffic movements and be navigating established residential areas, passing hundreds of driveways from homes and businesses that have direct access onto Leach Highway.

Fremantle Port is located on prime land due to its location to both beach and river waterfronts, links to the CBD, adjacency to commuter rail and its proximity to residential, commercial, tourism and retail assets across Fremantle. Given this, there are questions about the suitability of this land for industrial use.

Removing container trade would provide an opportunity to re-use this land for residential, commercial and tourism purposes. This would help consolidate population growth within Perth’s current urban footprint.

The Future of Fremantle Planning Committee, a subcommittee of the WA Planning Commission, will develop a vision for the longer-term redevelopment of Fremantle Port’s Inner Harbour and the Victoria Quay Waterfront Precinct.

The Committee comprises representatives from State Government agencies, Fremantle Ports, local businesses, industry, local government, and the Fremantle community.

More information on the committee and the proposal can be found here.