Imports or Exports?

Have just returned from a fascinating tour of Avonmouth and Portbury Docks which are no. 1 in UK for the import of cars and no. 2 in export of cars (Southampton is first). They have the largest car park in UK, possibly in Europe, holding up to 80,000 cars at peak periods.

These containers are 40' long and probably empty as the full ones are under guard somewhere safe.

Other imports and exports are coal and woodchip burned for making electricity
Animal feed
Grain, food and drink (lots of wine and nearly all GB's need for concentrated orange juice)
Paper and wood products
Containers that can hold anything from motorbikes to clothes, washing machines to TVs
Oil and jet fuel
Cement
Aluminium ingots
Waste metal (chopped up finely for export, melted down and returned to us in some other form!)

Much of the loose cargoes is sucked or bucketted up and transported through tubes or on elevators for quite long distances for storage - the whole place was rather like being entrapped in the middle of a game where huge cranes wielding spiked grabbers lurked to catch the unwary and have them sucked away and hidden in a silo or bin .

With 2600 acres to look after there has been a great deal of attention given to looking after wildlife and 42000 trees have been planted with 62 acres of wildlife corridors and 12 ponds. 75% of the electricity used on site comes from 3 wind turbines.

It is a far cry from what John Cabot would have seen as he left Bristol down the Avon on his way to ''discover'' Newfoundland in 1497 (see map)