Talk:List of ports and harbours in Wales

Ports

There are 9 Welsh ports[1], and these are:

Name	Operator
Newport	ABP
Cardif	ABP
Barry	ABP
Port Talbot	ABP
Swansea	ABP
Milford Haven	Milford Haven Port Authority
Fishguard	Stena Line Ports Ltd.
Holyhead	Stena Line Ports Ltd.
Mostyn	Private ownership

Scotland expands with harbours (as you are doing) in List of ports and harbours in Scotland, and this is common usage for list articles where the number of ports is small. We should wait to see how the RfC goes at List of ports in England and Wales, but suggest that at some point this should probably be renamed to List of ports and harbours in Wales. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:12, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy, I'm getting confused what is happening here and the RfC, if this article and the Scotland one are not to be merged into GB, then is the main difference here supposed to be "harbours"? If so, is the desired hierarchy to be Ports in GB, Ports and harbours in Scotland, Wales etc? Would also prefer one for England or its regions with harbours be also made for consistency. If so, then I agree this should be List of ports and harbours in Wales. DankJae 17:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks DankJae. There is some confusion and equivocation over the term "port" here. The UK government, and a number of other sources will tell you there are about 120 ports in the uk, but then we have [2] which states, inter alia, "In total, there are more than 650 ports in the UK for which statutory harbour authority powers have been granted, of which 120 are commercially active." But this actually points to the difference in definition. The 120 commercial ports under a port authority are ports, and the remainder are harbours. When arguments are made about ports being devolved now to Welsh Government, we are talking about commercial ports. I doubt this is the best definition out there, but it is not wrong[3]. So what are the 120 ports? Well to be honest, I don't know exactly yet. I know the 9 for Wales, as above and with a source. It is harder to find the list for the whole UK. Or rather, I did find one, but it only has just over 100 distinct ports on it: [4]. 92 of those are in Scotland, England and Wales. (Also worth noting that "England and Wales" are treated together there).

The List of ports in England and Wales list attempts to set an inclusion criterion with:

All of these port operators are members of the British Ports Association, the national trade body for ports and harbours.

But that is problematic because not all of those are ports. Some members are harbours and others are councils or even trade bodies and in some cases they are landlocked. My first priority for article cleanup, therefore, would be to limit the wider list to be just ports, and base it off the government sources. We would be looking at between 92 and 110 entries on that list by my count. As for this list - well if it is ports, there are 9 in Wales. If it is ports and harbours, there are a lot more - including various harbours that are not BPA members. I would think that is a more appropriate Welsh list, so yes, I would think this should be renamed List of ports and harbours in Wales. This also shows why this list and the Scottish list can persist if we have British ports in a list. Because British ports will just be the ports. Adding in all harbours will give us 650 entries, which would be too large. In essence we need both. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:55, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, makes sense, though each list can be clarified clearer. Not sure how NI also applies, if that includes harbours and should be renamed too, and whether it should be separate from the Ireland article. If we are adding harbours would prefer somewhere to house the English ones too, but that can be done at a later date. Thanks for clarifying. DankJae 18:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)