SMALL businesses say they have been hit hard by a doubling of the fee charged to unload a container on Hamilton docks.

The cost charged by Stevedoring Services to "strip" or unload a container has risen from $350 to $700, a price hike approved by dock authority the Corporation of Hamilton.

But the Corporation's Wharf Committee chairman Jay Bluck said the increase was justified as the old fee had remained unchanged for roughly a decade and importers had effectively been subsidised by the docks.

Clients who bring in full container loads, often larger businesses, can avoid the stripping cost by transporting them to their own premises where they do the unloading themselves.

But smaller businesses, or those importing lightweight and low-volume goods, tend to bring in less-than-container-loads (LCLs), sharing containers with others.

The manager of one small-scale importer, who asked not to be named, said: "We don't bring in enough in our shipments to fill a whole container, so we have no choice but to share.

"The cost of stripping a container has now doubled. It used to be charged as part of the shipping fee, but now it has gotten so expensive that we are being billed separately for it.

"We serve a small niche market and try to keep our costs down. But now our costs have risen and we'll have no choice but to pass on the increase. So the consumer will end up paying more.

"With this and the pulling down of Number Eight Shed, it seems like the Corporation is trying to force importers off the docks."

LCLs have traditionally been stripped on the docks. But with the amount of freight coming through the docks having increased at a rate of eight to nine per cent per annum over recent years, pressure has been growing on the limited space of the Front Street premises.

To create extra space, Number Eight Shed, where on-site stripping used to take place, was demolished earlier this year. Mr. Bluck said stripping was continuing at Number Seven Shed to give NVOs (non-vessel operators) time to find an alternative off-docks site.

Mr. Bluck said docks management had made clear its desire to get out of the LCL business altogether and that the doubling of the stripping fee had been justified.

"Because the rate of $350 was way, way below the value of what it cost to do the job, we and Stevedoring Services have been subsidising the small importers for years and years," Mr. Bluck said yesterday.

"And if you work out what it costs to strip a container, we are still not close to the commercial cost of the job.

"The value of the goods on an LCL is typically around $25,000 to $30,000. If you do the math, you find that the increase on a per-item basis is minuscule and it shouldn't make one iota of difference to prices."

The $700 fee was the cost of stripping the entire container and the cost would be split between those sharing it, he stressed.

Bermuda was one of few places in the world where the stripping of containers still place on the dock and the $350 fee had been in place for around ten years, he added.

"LCL cargo has impacts on the efficiency and safety of the docks," Mr. Bluck said. "Space is very limited and when a container is stripped and the cargo is spread out, it uses an enormous portion of the dock in relation to the amount of cargo.

"The Corporation has already said that we do not want to stay in the LCL business and we could have torn down Number Seven Shed, but we decided to continue stripping there until the NVOs have found some place off the docks to do stripping.

"We decided to bring our rates close to market value, so they wouldn't get so much of a shock when they try to get someone else to strip their containers for that price. The NVOs have been having it all their own way for some time."

The small importer we spoke to added an extra complaint about the docks service yesterday.

"Even though they've doubled the cost of stripping containers, they are telling us that they can't strip the containers that arrived on the Oleander on Sunday," he said.

"And now they're saying they might not be able to do it until after the May 24 holiday. So there's stuff I could be selling which is stuck on the docks. They are so inefficient down there and they just pass the cost of that inefficiency onto other people."

While the acreage of Hamilton docks has remained unchanged, the volume of cargo has rocketed in the last 15 years. Mr. Bluck said 11,000 containers had come through the docks in 1990, compared with 24,000 last year.

"Pulling down Number Eight Shed gave us 26 per cent more stacking space for containers," Mr. Bluck said. "All the things we are implementing in the next few years will be aimed at greater efficiency.

"When we were planning for growth in the late '90s, we were anticipating a two to three per cent increase in the number of containers per year, but it's been more like eight or nine per cent.

"At that rate, we can expect to have around 2,300 more containers than last year. Where are we going to put them. How quickly are we going to be able to deal with them?"

He said he believed that the removal of Number Eight Shed and the probable removal of Number Seven at some point could allow the docks to remain in Hamilton for another 20 years, if necessary, but that would require careful management and the taking of some big decisions.