The largest ships anchor off Suffolk to await the pilot vessel from Harwich to escort them to London Gateway through the shifting sands off Essex.

[6] Since March 2017, German grocery retailer Lidl has been operating out of the DP World London Gateway Logistics Centre, the first warehouse to be developed on the site.

[8] This electronic data interchange system provides the flow of import and export information between shipping lines, ports, freight forwarders, customs and other inspection agencies, hauliers and rail operators.

As part of construction of the port, DP World London Gateway has invested significantly into improving road access to the facility.

[16] On site 25 kilometres (16 mi) of double track access accommodates trains of up to 35 wagons long (750 metres (2,460 ft), which are loaded/unloaded next to the port container handling areas.

The East Coast Main Line connection to serve Doncaster and Leeds carries a smaller W8 loading gauge clearance, requiring the use of specially designed low-liner wagons to accommodate the taller containers.

[17] The rail terminal, operated by GB Railfreight, is served by three rail-mounted gantry cranes which move containers between ground-based cassettes and wagons.

[18] The three-week-long journey (19 days) took the train and its cargo through France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, ending in Yiwu in China's eastern Zhejiang province.

DP World London Gateway Logistics Park is a 9.25million square foot bank of land ready for the development of warehouse and distribution facilities.

[19] This includes options to occupy speculatively built facilities on site or to work with an on-site team to develop bespoke buildings of any size, for manufacturing, distribution or storage.

[22] At the end of 2016, DP World London Gateway's Logistics Park Development Director, Oliver Treneman,[23] established a supply chain commercial team.

The first facility to be completed on the site was the DP World London Gateway Logistics Centre, which was awarded Planet First[25] accreditation in December 2015.

[27] The centre was initially operated by Import Services Ltd,[28] but the agreement ended as DP World wished to work more closely to end-users of the warehouse.

Close to DP World London Gateway at the Medway Estuary, on the south-east side of the Isle of Grain, is the Hutchison Whampoa-owned Thamesport, a small but well-established container terminal.

The Tilbury container port on the north bank, upriver of London Gateway, was previously partially owned by DP World, but was sold shortly before the development initially opened.

DP World received Government approval for the development of the Port and Logistics Park, identified by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as one of the four economic hubs needed for the regeneration of the Thames Gateway, in May 2006.

[32] In May 2008 the Department for Transport issued a "Harbour Empowerment Order" for DP World London Gateway, which provided official and statutory powers for the new port and established it as a legally recognised authority.

[34] In January 2010 DP World announced its intention to seek a share listing on the London Stock Exchange in the second quarter of 2010,[35] and was given the go-ahead for construction of the port.

Despite growing steadily since 2013, attracting services to call at the port which operate between North Europe and South America, Africa, Australia, India and more, the big breakthrough came in March 2017 when THE Alliance – a container shipping consortium made up of Hapag Lloyd, NYK Line, K-Line, Mitsui-Osk Line and Yang Ming – announced it would be using DP World London Gateway for its UK ports of call on Asia-Europe services.

The port was reported to have processed 300,000 containers (TEU) in 2014, its first full year of operation, considered reasonably successful for a new facility facing a lot of inertia from users.