Portland Port was the place to be last week as employees, tenants, dignitaries, and other invitees came together to mark the official opening of a new deep-water berth.

Representing a record £26 million development, it’s come just in time for a similarly record-breaking cruise season.

The port is now well-equipped to keep up with a growing trend of increasingly large vessels – with some clocking in at up to 350m in length.

Featuring a welcome reception, speeches, and a tour of the new berth, the opening ceremony was also soundtracked by local band The Decadettes.

Among the 150 guests were Cllr Paul Kimber from the Portland Harbour Consultative Committee, and Paul Appleby, president of Weymouth and Portland Chamber of Commerce.

Meanwhile, lord-lieutenant of Dorset Angus Campbell was on hand to usher in this new era for Portland Port, as he unveiled a commemorative plaque.

Bill Reeves, chief executive of Portland Port, said: “This redevelopment is a tremendous vote of confidence in the port and the local economy, and one of the largest redevelopment projects in the area in recent years.

“It sets the stage for significant further growth in the future at the port and for the local economy through jobs and local supply chain.

“I wish to thank all of our partners and contractors for their support during the course of the redevelopment, including members of the local community, our tenants at the port, and neighbouring businesses, as well as our managing contractor Knights Brown for their exceptional project delivery.

“We’re also grateful to HSBC UK for its support with an eight-figure financial package to enable this work to go ahead.”

Bill also thanked the team at Ringwood-based Knights Brown, managing contractor on the project and co-hosts at the opening ceremony, “for their exceptional project delivery”.

Their work began last September to remove the existing berth and implement a new, extended berth of 250m in length and 12m in depth.

They also added a 75m extension to the port’s Outer Coaling Pier, used for the handling of dry bulk cargo as well as the occasional cruise ship.

With these two structures now in place, Portland Port will be able to accommodate two 350m long cruise ships at the same time.

Kevin Valentine, managing director at Knights Brown, added: “I am delighted to see the berth fully operational having been delivered early and on budget.

“When we embarked on delivering this for the port there were many who thought that it couldn’t be done within the required timescale, cost, and quality.

“However, through true collaboration between all partners on the project we have achieved everything that we set out to.

“I would like to thank all of the partners involved in the success of this scheme but in particular Portland Port who had to foresight to understand that true collaboration really does work.”

Although the new berth has only just officially opened, it saw use back in April when the MSC Virtuosa brought a record 5,000 passengers into Portland Port.

Now, after a few final works, it’s ready to welcome the 130,000 travellers due to call at the port this season.

This comes off the back of the hugely successful annual summer gathering for Cruise Britain earlier this month, which was hosted at Portland Port alongside Princess Cruises.

• portland-port.co.uk