---
title: "Elizabeth Harbour rebuild enabling works to start next year"
url: https://www.nsfw.info/elizabeth-harbour-rebuild-enabling-works-start-next-year/
published: 2026-11-02T09:30:53+00:00
modified: 2026-11-02T09:30:53+00:00
author: "Chief Editor"
categories: ["News"]
image: https://www.nsfw.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/elizabeth-harbour-rebuild-enabling-works-start-next-year-1024x572.webp
summary: "Enabling works for the major Elizabeth Harbour redevelopment are expected to start next year, with the full project estimated to take around six years to comple"
publisher: NSFW (https://www.nsfw.info)
---

# Elizabeth Harbour rebuild enabling works to start next year

**In brief:** Enabling works for the major redevelopment of Elizabeth Harbour are expected to begin next year, around two years after planning permission was granted. Harbourmaster Captain Bill Sadler says the full regeneration project could take up to six years from start to finish, encompassing marine works, freight reconfiguration and a new terminal building.

## Two Years in the Making

It has been roughly two years since planning permission was granted for the Elizabeth Harbour redevelopment, a centrepiece of Ports of Jersey’s wider Harbour Master Plan. Progress has not been idle in the interim: the Jersey Evening Post reports that Ports of Jersey announced last year that a delivery partnership led by VolkerFitzpatrick, VolkerStevin and Geomarine, with specialist supply chain partners Arup and Boskalis, has been working on the detailed design for the construction work.

However, a number of planning conditions still need to be discharged before major works can commence. Harbourmaster Captain Bill Sadler confirmed that those conditions are being worked through, and that “there will be enabling works starting next year.”

## What the Redevelopment Involves

The project is substantial in scope. At its core is the creation of a suspended deck that will bring together the harbour’s two freight operations: its “Load on, Load off” (Lo Lo) and “Roll on, Roll off” (Ro Ro) functions. Achieving that will require dredging, land reclamation, and the construction of a concrete wall and revetment designed to absorb wave energy and protect against erosion.

Beyond the marine works, Elizabeth Terminal itself will be replaced, and the external public areas around the harbour will be redesigned. Freight facilities will be expanded and improved, with restricted zones relocated and a new distribution building constructed.

Captain Sadler broke the project down into two broad phases. “The first big handful is the marine works,” he told the Jersey Evening Post. “The dredging, the suspended deck, the land reclamation, that’s about two years of work. Then you’ve got the reorganisation of all the land-based stuff. So moving the restricted zones, construction of a distribution building, the terminal. I would divide those up into two chunks and they’re probably a couple of years each as well.”

Taken together, Captain Sadler estimates the full regeneration will run to approximately six years from start to finish.

## Timing Is Everything

One factor adding complexity to the scheduling is Jersey’s new hospital. Captain Sadler highlighted the importance of “ensuring we start at the right time,” noting that the hospital construction project will generate significant additional freight volume passing through the harbour. Getting the sequencing right, so that harbour operations are not disrupted at precisely the moment demand on them spikes, is clearly a key consideration for the project team.

It is a sensible point. Elizabeth Harbour is the island’s primary freight gateway, and any prolonged disruption to Lo Lo or Ro Ro services would ripple quickly through Jersey’s supply chains. The suspended deck design, which consolidates both freight operations, is intended to deliver a more efficient and resilient facility once complete, but the transition period will require careful management.

## The NSFW Perspective

Six years is a long time, and Jerseyfolk who remember the drawn-out sagas of other major island infrastructure projects will be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at the timeline. That said, the scale here is genuinely significant: dredging, reclamation, a new suspended deck, a replacement terminal and a full reorganisation of the freight estate is not something you knock together over a long weekend.

The hospital freight point is astute. Whoever is coordinating between Ports of Jersey and the hospital project team deserves a quiet round of applause for thinking about it now rather than discovering the clash mid-construction. Whether that coordination will remain this sensible once budgets and deadlines start biting is, of course, another matter entirely. Watch this space, preferably from a safe distance from the dredging equipment.

*Source: [Jersey Evening Post](https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/11/02/elizabeth-harbour-project-enabling-works-expected-to-start-next-year)*