Industry body Mersey Maritime is freezing fees for its members for the 2022/23 financial year to support city region firms grappling with rising costs. Tony McDonough reports

Mersey Maritime is to freeze fees for its hundreds of members to help them with rising business costs.

Based in Birkenhead, Mersey Maritime is the representative body for the Liverpool city region’s £4bn powerhouse maritime sector. Its hundreds of members work across more than 30 sub-sectors including shipping, digital, engineering and professional services.

Since its inception almost 20 years ago, the organisation has been instrumental in the renaissance of the local maritime sector which now employs tens of thousands of people and is recognised as one of the most successful and dynamic industry clusters in Europe.

Led by chief executive Chris Shirling-Rooke and his team, Mersey Maritime offered support to its members during the COVID-19 pandemic. It took regular snapshot surveys of how its members were faring during the crisis and fed the data directly through to Government.

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Now, as its members face new challenges in the shape of rising fuel, raw materials and labour costs, head of commercial at Mersey Maritime, Ruth Wood, will be writing to all its members confirming the price freeze for the next 12 months.

She said: “On behalf of Mersey Maritime, I want to thank you for your continued support and input into our thriving maritime community.

“Mersey Maritime was conceived almost twenty years ago to create an ecosystem, championing and supporting every business no matter the size within one of the most diverse maritime regions in the UK, something that’s still core to our identity to this day.

“After the many challenges we have all faced over the last few years and further uncertainty ahead, we truly believe that ‘We Are Stronger Together’ and as small gesture of both our gratitude and support, we have taken the decision to freeze existing membership fees until the end of this financial year (2022-2023).”

Members were also informed of the move at Mersey Maritime’s latest ‘Face-2-Face’ networking meeting which takes place every first Tuesday of the month. This popular event in Mersey Maritime’s calendar of activities gives a leading business in its ecosystem the opportunity to present their activities to members.

Every quarter this session is given over to a multi-member forum approach with three companies showcasing their work on Tuesday, May 3. They included specialist at height project company, Infinite Access Solutions; leading health and safety training provide, Complete Training Solutions; and interior fit-out specialists, MD Fitout.

In the next few months Mersey Maritime will also see one of its key projects, the £25m Maritime Knowledge Hub, first conceived six years ago, start to come to fruition in earnest. The 60,000 sq ft facility, will be built around the Grade II-listed 19th century hydraulic tower building in Wirral Waters and will lead to the creation of 4,000 jobs in the first five years.