Row upon row of Range Rovers and Minis gleam in the afternoon sun in the yards around Southampton docks, waiting to be driven on to huge cargo ships that will carry them to car-hungry emerging economies.
From his office, port director Doug Morrison can see the towering cruise ships being loaded before they cast off for Mediterranean and Caribbean holidays.
Alongside stands a ship awaiting a cargo of new cars, which arrive on the dockside on dedicated trains from manufacturers in the Midlands. Further along are container ships bringing TVs and clothes from the far east and a vast array of goods to stock Britain's shops.
"Two years ago there were 500,000 imports and exports of new cars here. This year it is 750,000 and I am pleased to say 65% of that is exports.
They are from Jaguar Land Rover, Honda and there are Mini Coopers. Much of that growth is coming from Jaguar Land Rover sales to the far east," says Morrison.
This picture of a thriving British export sector is exactly the one the coalition will be hoping to project on Thursday, if, as experts expect, the latest GDP figures show the economy expanded at a healthy clip in the second quarter of 2013.
Analysts predict a growth rate of around 0.6%, perhaps even 0.8%, which would represent a marked strengthening of the recovery – good news for a coalition keen to seize on signs that the economy has moved "out of intensive care", as chancellor George Osborne puts it.
"We have a great economic barometer here. We can really see what is happening," says Morrison, who has run the docks for Associated British Ports since 2005. He talks about the "three C's" – cars, cruises and containers – and all point to an upturn, albeit with choppy seas ahead.
"The cruise business continues to be very strong," he says. Famous in the past as the port from which Titanic set sail on its ill-fated maiden voyage, Southampton now sees 1.6 million passengers embark and disembark from cruise ships every year. Less than a decade ago only a third as many were passing through the port.
But Morrison adds that the number of containers being landed has not risen – the lack of growth in consumer imports evidence of tough times on Britain's high streets.
"When you look at what the likes of Tesco and Argos are saying, it's not surprising that you are not seeing any real growth in containers." It is not only at the dockside that things are looking up, four years on from the depths of the recession.
Jan Ward, chief executive and founder of specialist metals distributor Corrotherm International, based on an industrial estate on the edge of the city, says she is "overwhelmed with work". "These have been the best five years we have had," says Ward, who started the company in 1992.
On the back of strong demand for the nickel alloy parts the company supplies to the oil and gas industry, turnover grew 46% over the last year to £21m and Ward expects it to double this year. Corrotherm has recently opened offices in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Korea and Perth in Australia and is about to open one in China.
Ward, an active member of the local chamber of commerce, believes the government's push for what the chancellor has called a "march of the makers" is finally starting to yield results. "All the signs that I see are very, very good. Finally, these messages are starting to get through to manufacturers and people who are looking to start businesses up.
For the manufacturing sector things are looking very bright." Despite her optimism, however, some economists are concerned that while a stronger GDP reading would undoubtedly be good news, there is so far little sign of the deep-seated shifts in the economy the government had hoped to bring about.
Russell Jones of Llewellyn Consulting says: "It looks like what is driving this is the consumer to a large degree, and you could argue that that's the wrong sort of growth."
The housing market is starting to recover and retail spending is on the rise, but business investment in the first quarter of 2013 was more than 16% lower than a year earlier.
Meanwhile the latest trade figures suggested that although exports are rising, so are imports, so that hopes of Britain becoming a new manufacturing powerhouse have so far proved over-optimistic.
Simon Wells, UK economist at HSBC, says: "Back in 2010, we were hoping the economy would rebalance in three ways: away from services and towards manufacturing; away from consumption and towards investment; and away from domestic demand and towards exports. Now it seems that for policymakers, any growth will do."
The Bank of England and the Treasury had expected the sharp depreciation in sterling since 2008 to spark an export revival, as British goods became cheaper on world markets.
But the transformation has been hampered, both because our major markets have been in crisis and our industrial sector is so hollowed out that an increase in exports brings in its wake a jump in imports too, as manufacturers buy raw materials and parts.
At the same time, the decline in the pound has been one cause of the above-target inflation that has further hampered recovery by eating into workers' pay.
Jones points out that with real incomes continuing to fall, in what the TUC has described as the longest squeeze on wages since the late 19th century, any rise in consumption is being driven by "people dipping into their savings".
There is certainly evidence in Southampton that the long-stalled property market is beginning to revive. Lisa Martin-Pope, who works in one of the many estate agents on the city's busy London Road, says: "The biggest indicator at the moment is we are seeing more first-time buyers and seeing banks and building societies lending to them more readily."
Her agency, Martin & Co, is seeing homes selling more quickly, with the average buyer paying 93% of the asking price. Labour will argue on Thursday that the benefits of the nascent upturn have been pocketed by a limited number of people, including those in financial services.
Chris Leslie, shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, says: "Wages after inflation are now down by an average of £1,300 since David Cameron got into Downing Street, yet bank bonuses soared to £4bn in April as high earners took full advantage of the top-rate tax cut." From his window on the docks, Doug Morrison agrees that not everyone is reaping the rewards of recovery.
"The haves continue to spend and the have-nots cannot spend," he says. "People are reluctant to give up their holidays, the haves are still buying cars, but the poor people out of work or not getting any pay rises are not buying their three-piece suites or buying new clothes as often."
The haves are certainly in evidence at Southampton's Ocean Village marina, where shining white yachts are moored alongside motorboats.
Luxury apartments overlook the water and in harbourside bars people sit around tables with glasses of chilled rosé and beer. The only thing to spoil the idyllic summer scene is the sound of the jackhammers on the nearby construction site where a £74m, 24-storey apartment block will become Southampton's tallest building.
James King, of local boat and home broker Waterside Properties, says there is a "cautious recovery". But a short drive away from the marina, at Ford's soon-to-be-defunct Transit van plant, there's a powerful sense that not everyone is sharing in what Osborne calls the "healing" of recession-scarred Britain. Engineer Chris finds it hard to conceal his dismay at losing the job he has had for 28 years.
"It is devastating really. It's the end of an era. Anyone who has been here a long time is faced with a very empty shell of a plant. It is like a ghost town."
Chris, 52, who preferred not to give his full name, is moving to a new job with Ford in Wales, but not all his colleagues have been so fortunate, he says. "There's a lot of youngsters that have young families. We are closely knit."
When the factory is mothballed on Friday it will mark the end of more than a century of Ford vehicle manufacturing in the UK and more than 40 years of making Transit vans in Southampton. Faced with a prolonged slump in demand across western Europe that has seen new vehicle sales drop to a 20-year low, Ford is moving much of its production to a cheaper base in Turkey.
"The atmosphere in there is one of shock and disbelief. People are walking around as if they don't know what's happened. People in there I've known for years, grown men, they have been in tears," says Chris.
It remains to be seen if the long-hoped-for recovery that seems to be taking root will blossom as the year goes on, perhaps bringing with it the greater confidence for firms, and new jobs and pay rises for their staff, that would help to spread its benefits.
Until that happens, most analysts will continue to be sceptical. "I'm still quite cautious about growth," says Wells of HSBC.
"There must be a limit to how much we can grow when real, post-inflation wages are falling."
guardian.co.uk
From his office, port director Doug Morrison can see the towering cruise ships being loaded before they cast off for Mediterranean and Caribbean holidays.
Alongside stands a ship awaiting a cargo of new cars, which arrive on the dockside on dedicated trains from manufacturers in the Midlands. Further along are container ships bringing TVs and clothes from the far east and a vast array of goods to stock Britain's shops.
"Two years ago there were 500,000 imports and exports of new cars here. This year it is 750,000 and I am pleased to say 65% of that is exports.
They are from Jaguar Land Rover, Honda and there are Mini Coopers. Much of that growth is coming from Jaguar Land Rover sales to the far east," says Morrison.
This picture of a thriving British export sector is exactly the one the coalition will be hoping to project on Thursday, if, as experts expect, the latest GDP figures show the economy expanded at a healthy clip in the second quarter of 2013.
Analysts predict a growth rate of around 0.6%, perhaps even 0.8%, which would represent a marked strengthening of the recovery – good news for a coalition keen to seize on signs that the economy has moved "out of intensive care", as chancellor George Osborne puts it.
"We have a great economic barometer here. We can really see what is happening," says Morrison, who has run the docks for Associated British Ports since 2005. He talks about the "three C's" – cars, cruises and containers – and all point to an upturn, albeit with choppy seas ahead.
"The cruise business continues to be very strong," he says. Famous in the past as the port from which Titanic set sail on its ill-fated maiden voyage, Southampton now sees 1.6 million passengers embark and disembark from cruise ships every year. Less than a decade ago only a third as many were passing through the port.
But Morrison adds that the number of containers being landed has not risen – the lack of growth in consumer imports evidence of tough times on Britain's high streets.
"When you look at what the likes of Tesco and Argos are saying, it's not surprising that you are not seeing any real growth in containers." It is not only at the dockside that things are looking up, four years on from the depths of the recession.
Jan Ward, chief executive and founder of specialist metals distributor Corrotherm International, based on an industrial estate on the edge of the city, says she is "overwhelmed with work". "These have been the best five years we have had," says Ward, who started the company in 1992.
On the back of strong demand for the nickel alloy parts the company supplies to the oil and gas industry, turnover grew 46% over the last year to £21m and Ward expects it to double this year. Corrotherm has recently opened offices in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Korea and Perth in Australia and is about to open one in China.
Ward, an active member of the local chamber of commerce, believes the government's push for what the chancellor has called a "march of the makers" is finally starting to yield results. "All the signs that I see are very, very good. Finally, these messages are starting to get through to manufacturers and people who are looking to start businesses up.
For the manufacturing sector things are looking very bright." Despite her optimism, however, some economists are concerned that while a stronger GDP reading would undoubtedly be good news, there is so far little sign of the deep-seated shifts in the economy the government had hoped to bring about.
Russell Jones of Llewellyn Consulting says: "It looks like what is driving this is the consumer to a large degree, and you could argue that that's the wrong sort of growth."
The housing market is starting to recover and retail spending is on the rise, but business investment in the first quarter of 2013 was more than 16% lower than a year earlier.
Meanwhile the latest trade figures suggested that although exports are rising, so are imports, so that hopes of Britain becoming a new manufacturing powerhouse have so far proved over-optimistic.
Simon Wells, UK economist at HSBC, says: "Back in 2010, we were hoping the economy would rebalance in three ways: away from services and towards manufacturing; away from consumption and towards investment; and away from domestic demand and towards exports. Now it seems that for policymakers, any growth will do."
The Bank of England and the Treasury had expected the sharp depreciation in sterling since 2008 to spark an export revival, as British goods became cheaper on world markets.
But the transformation has been hampered, both because our major markets have been in crisis and our industrial sector is so hollowed out that an increase in exports brings in its wake a jump in imports too, as manufacturers buy raw materials and parts.
At the same time, the decline in the pound has been one cause of the above-target inflation that has further hampered recovery by eating into workers' pay.
Jones points out that with real incomes continuing to fall, in what the TUC has described as the longest squeeze on wages since the late 19th century, any rise in consumption is being driven by "people dipping into their savings".
There is certainly evidence in Southampton that the long-stalled property market is beginning to revive. Lisa Martin-Pope, who works in one of the many estate agents on the city's busy London Road, says: "The biggest indicator at the moment is we are seeing more first-time buyers and seeing banks and building societies lending to them more readily."
Her agency, Martin & Co, is seeing homes selling more quickly, with the average buyer paying 93% of the asking price. Labour will argue on Thursday that the benefits of the nascent upturn have been pocketed by a limited number of people, including those in financial services.
Chris Leslie, shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, says: "Wages after inflation are now down by an average of £1,300 since David Cameron got into Downing Street, yet bank bonuses soared to £4bn in April as high earners took full advantage of the top-rate tax cut." From his window on the docks, Doug Morrison agrees that not everyone is reaping the rewards of recovery.
"The haves continue to spend and the have-nots cannot spend," he says. "People are reluctant to give up their holidays, the haves are still buying cars, but the poor people out of work or not getting any pay rises are not buying their three-piece suites or buying new clothes as often."
The haves are certainly in evidence at Southampton's Ocean Village marina, where shining white yachts are moored alongside motorboats.
Luxury apartments overlook the water and in harbourside bars people sit around tables with glasses of chilled rosé and beer. The only thing to spoil the idyllic summer scene is the sound of the jackhammers on the nearby construction site where a £74m, 24-storey apartment block will become Southampton's tallest building.
James King, of local boat and home broker Waterside Properties, says there is a "cautious recovery". But a short drive away from the marina, at Ford's soon-to-be-defunct Transit van plant, there's a powerful sense that not everyone is sharing in what Osborne calls the "healing" of recession-scarred Britain. Engineer Chris finds it hard to conceal his dismay at losing the job he has had for 28 years.
"It is devastating really. It's the end of an era. Anyone who has been here a long time is faced with a very empty shell of a plant. It is like a ghost town."
Chris, 52, who preferred not to give his full name, is moving to a new job with Ford in Wales, but not all his colleagues have been so fortunate, he says. "There's a lot of youngsters that have young families. We are closely knit."
When the factory is mothballed on Friday it will mark the end of more than a century of Ford vehicle manufacturing in the UK and more than 40 years of making Transit vans in Southampton. Faced with a prolonged slump in demand across western Europe that has seen new vehicle sales drop to a 20-year low, Ford is moving much of its production to a cheaper base in Turkey.
"The atmosphere in there is one of shock and disbelief. People are walking around as if they don't know what's happened. People in there I've known for years, grown men, they have been in tears," says Chris.
It remains to be seen if the long-hoped-for recovery that seems to be taking root will blossom as the year goes on, perhaps bringing with it the greater confidence for firms, and new jobs and pay rises for their staff, that would help to spread its benefits.
Until that happens, most analysts will continue to be sceptical. "I'm still quite cautious about growth," says Wells of HSBC.
"There must be a limit to how much we can grow when real, post-inflation wages are falling."
guardian.co.uk
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