The new £38m landing stage and terminal at Princes Half-Tide Dock, Liverpool, is behind schedule.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Baker has confirmed the scheme will not be ready by July 2021, which was already a delay of five months from the original February completion target.

Mr Baker said that the project has been delayed due to a ’number of factors’ including the Covid-19 pandemic.

He added: ’The productivity on site has been reduced due to some of the practical measures that have been brought in around social distancing.

’In addition, there is some disruption to supply chains which we’re all seeing, things just take longer to obtain, whether that be building materials or medical equipment, those things clearly weren’t part of the original plans.’

However, he did say that the contractor has now completed the ’harder stages of the work’ regarding the site and the initial ground works and that he expects the building to be ’out of the ground in the next few weeks’.

In 2015, the Steam Packet said Peel Ports would invest £15m in a replacement facility for the Pier Head terminal which will become part of Liverpool’s new £50m cruise terminal after the Steam Packet vacates that site.

A similar agreement is in place with ferry operator Stena Line at the Twelve Quays port in Birkenhead where a £17m modernisation scheme is being carried out by the company and landowner Peel Ports.

However, the Manx government instead decided to buy the land and pay for the new terminal with taxpayers’ money instead.

The cost has already risen from £30,492,000 to £38,054,000.