SID: That would indeed be the ideal solution but there has clearly always been a reluctance to do it for some reason. Obviously it would not be an amendment to the original charter, which as I pointed out together with illustrations on a previous thread, is in medieval Latin and of no relevance today. It would be an amendment to the most recent legislation governing the operation of the port. As far as one can judge, it is not going to happen and a sale of the port along the lines proposed by the last Labour government is seemingly inevitable. The Conservatives did promise to review the matter after the election but it would appear that we can take that with a pinch of salt.
ROSS: Thanks for that useful analysis. Refreshing to get an intelligent slant on the figures involved, which incidentally accord with my own layman's interpretation of the DHB Corporate reports. What particularly struck me when perusing these was how small an operation the port is in financial terms and how little there is to be gained from siphoning off a modest proportion of the profits for the town. All the value is in the infrastructure which has been built up little by little over a very long period of time. One can well see why there is now such a clamour to cash in on this legacy.
Charlie would appear to value the port at £400m going by his comment in "Dover docks sell off" on his chatmap back in March:
"The talk is that Gordon Brown has agreed management and employees will get 10% of the sale price. That will be in the region of £40m."
http://elphicke.com/chatmap/