Member Spotlight: John Chaplin, Director for External Affairs and Special Projects at Bristol Port

Occasionally we like to shine the spotlight on our members, and in this case one of the members of the Bristol Initiative. We sat down with John Chaplin, Director for External Affairs and Special Projects at Bristol Port to talk about his role at one of the regions biggest employers.

Tell us about your role – what do you have responsibility for? What does a typical day look like? 

“Find a job you love, and you never have to work a day in your life” and “every day is different” are two truisms for my role at The Bristol Port Company where I am Director for External Affairs and Special Projects. 

I have two areas of responsibility; 

• to provide support for the Port in engaging with all our stakeholders - from local residents to Government Ministers, and from press reporters to senior staff in Network Rail; 
• to lead and manage major projects being undertaken by the port and to represent the Port for projects by others that affect us.

A recent day has been typical. I spent time arranging a forthcoming event when a Minister is visiting the Port ensuring we have the appropriate staff and resources available and we are able to highlight issues of particular relevance including our EV fleet and providing a photo’ opportunity on one of our vessels. I attended the daily morning meeting when all the Port’s Directors share their department’s brief report of that day’s activities and mention any other pertinent matters. I spent a part of the day away from the office outlining our proposals to provide compensatory habitat at a site in Somerset to an audience that included the Environment Agency, internal drainage boards, and landowners. With my team, I reviewed a consultant’s proposals to help support our planning application of land to support the Port’s growth. I summarised a consultant’s technical report with the associated costs and programme to furnish our Board with a recommendation to progress that proposal. And I replied to a lady who has booked a cruise from Bristol and wondered if she can walk from Gordano Services to the ship.

What does your organisation do? Why do you like working for them?
 
The Bristol Port Company is the statutory and competent harbour authority and manages, operates, and maintains the commercial ports of Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock. The Port is unusual amongst the other UK major ports as we are a family business; look after just a single Port and deal with a more eclectic range of cargoes than any of our competitors. We deal with about 650,000 motor vehicles each year, mostly for import and increasingly EV and Chinese brands. Every pig, chicken, and cow anywhere South of Birmingham will have eaten animal feed imported to Bristol. We deal with containers carrying cargo for our supermarkets and other retailers. We deal with “forest products” that includes timber, paper and pulp. Our break-bulk cargoes include aluminium and steel. Avonmouth is the muster port for EDF's Hinkley C, and we will have a role in the development of Sizewell C NPS. Bristol provides a small but regionally significant port for cruises.  
The Port is an amazing place to work and I feel incredibly fortunate to have a small role. 

The Bristol Port Company employs 750 staff and supports 23,000 jobs across the UK workforce. The Port contributed £1.31 billion to UK GDP last year of which we estimate that £567 million of GVA and 9,410 jobs were sustained across the Bristol and North Somerset economies.

Why have you joined the Bristol Initiative? 

For The Bristol Port Company, the Bristol Initiative provides information that is relevant to our operations but principally The Initiative affords me the opportunity to collaborate with others and participate in events that seek to assist in shaping the future of the City and Region for the benefit of all stakeholders whether they be residents, businesses, NGOs, charities, et cetera, and whether permanent or transitory.

Both personally and professionally on behalf of Bristol Port it is essential that I remain up to speed with the issues affecting the lives of everybody in the city and local region. It is critical that the Region’s multimodal transport hub and international gateway understand what is occurring and can participate and influence where appropriate and helpful in the decision-making process. It is a privilege to participate in The Initiative’s events and witness that everyone is committed to doing their best see the city grow and prosper.  

What are the key agendas that you’re looking forward to getting involved with? 

Ports are the key to securing Net-Zero. They will help the transition to new energy sources that are not dependent upon fossil fuels through the import of more sustainable, environmentally acceptable fuels. Ports are multimodal transport hubs enabling the delivery of the plant, materials and equipment required for new power stations. They will have a role enabling the implementation of Carbon Capture Utilisation & Storage (CCUS) and the production, storage and moving of hydrogen.

The role for Bristol Port in helping the energy transition is already recognised by Local, Regional, and central Government. As EdF’s muster port we will enable the completion of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (NPS) and are already committed to helping the construction of Sizewell C NPS. We are collaborating with our Mayoral Combined Authority as The Port plays a key role within the West of England Industrial Cluster.

The Net-Zero work at Bristol port is an opportunity for the Region and the Port’s immediate neighbours to benefit from the investment that will be necessary to facilitate the energy transition. There will be jobs in established sectors such as construction, IT, and logistics but “new” jobs with all the associated training and skills development to enable the provision of innovative technologies to support the work in the Port and our hinterland. 

Where is your favourite place to visit in Bristol?

What a ludicrous question and how could anybody answer with a single destination! We are all incredibly fortunate to live in such a socially inclusive, diverse, and beautiful City with so much to offer inside and outside from parks, museums, art galleries, music venues, theatres, shopping, pubs, sports, cafés, and restaurants, et cetera, et cetera.

I have been based in Bristol for many years but even after all that time I continue to discover new places to experience not just as I move around the area but as the city itself evolves and grows. Earlier this year and some 40-years after leaving my alma-mater at some northern City on the wrong side of the Pennines, I hosted a group of those people I had befriended at that time. We meet each year and it was my turn to “host”. For the first time ever, I took the ferry from Temple Meads with them and I was proud and privileged to show them the sites as we travelled along the floating harbour from Temple Meads, past the former Generator Building for Bristol trams, past Finzel’s Reach, Bristol Bridge, then past Welsh Back before the Centre with glimpse of the Hippodrome, and then on past M Shed, the SS Great Britain and Underfall Yard. It is an amazing trip that brilliantly demonstrates the City’s history, diversity, and development. For visitors, the vistas are wide ranging and photogenic; for residents like me they are a reminder how lucky we are!

If you'd like to follow John on social media you can do so on Linkedin here, and you can follow and find out more about the Bristol Port Company there too. Also if you are a member of The Bristol Initiative and would like to be featured in a blog just like this one then you can get in touch with me or Jenny.