THE Port of Tilbury has scooped the inaugural National Infrastructure Planning Association Award for "Best Project" with its plans to create the new Tilbury2 port.

The judges praised the team behind the Development Consent Order Process (DCO) dealing with the new port, which is currently under construction and due to open in 2020.

Celebrating the award, Peter Ward, Commercial Director at The Port of Tilbury, said: "We are thrilled to have received this prestigious award from NIPA. Throughout the DCO process for Tilbury2 we wanted to ensure that best practice was paramount and we worked hard to engage fully with all our stakeholders.

"The Award is yet another way that NIPA identifies and shares best practice in the planning, development and delivery of nationally significant infrastructure projects, and we will be publishing case studies of the shortlisted entries shortly. Many congratulations to the Port of Tilbury and their Tilbury2 team, and our thanks to all of those who submitted entries."

Tilbury2 is under construction on 150 acres of land at the former Tilbury Power Station on the north bank of the River Thames at Tilbury. When operational in Spring 2020, Tilbury2 will be the UK's largest unaccompanied ro-ro freight ferry port, the country's biggest construction processing hub managed by Tarmac, and will see the creation of a new rail head which can accommodate the longest freight trains of 775 metres.

The project is central to the Port of Tilbury's £1 billion investment programme during 2012-20, which has seen it double the size of its business in the past 10 years and is projected to double the volume of cargo across the quay (from 16 million to 32 million tonnes) and increase direct employment (from 3,500 to 12,000 jobs) over the next 10-15 years.