The last operational commercial harbour on the Upper Clyde, King George V Dock is located at Shieldhall on the south bank of the river. Built in 1931 for the Clyde Navigation Trust, it was designed as a large single basin to provide unrestricted access for the increasingly large vessels arriving in Glasgow.
The dock includes a total of 1586m (5203 feet) of usable quay, available along the riverside as Shieldhall Quay (maximum length 539m / 1768 feet), together with Basin East (640m / 2099 feet) and Basin West (830m / 2723 feet). The water depth is 8.5m (28 feet) and the basin is 100m (328 feet) in width.
The dock handles biomass, bulk dry and agricultural products (such as animal feeds, aggregates and grain), wood and forest products, metals, chemicals, industrial equipment, wind turbine components. 60,000 sq. m (645,834 sq. feet) of storage is available in sheds, with another 32.6 ha (80.5 acres) outside.
The dock is now owned and operated by Clydeport, part of Peel Ports Plc. Clydeport began in 1966 with the merger of the Clyde Navigation Trust, the Greenock Harbour Trust and the Clyde Lighthouses Trust to form the Clyde Port Authority. This Authority was privatised in 1992, was subject to a management buyout soon after and acquired by Peel Ports in 2003. Clydeport also manages Clydeport Greenock and Ardrossan Harbour.
Access to the road network is particularly easy, with the M8 motorway and A8 dual-carriageway passing immediately to the south. The Braehead Centre lies a quarter-mile (0.5 km) to the northwest.
