The post you are reporting:
Under the Ports Act there is no defined cooling off period. Theoretically Bob and his team could take on board what the minister has written and draw up a new request for transfer accordingly which would be subject to a renewed period of consultation. The Ports Minister, Stephen Hammond MP, will be meeting with them, but the meeting will not be quite what Bob has in mind I think. BG seems to think that he will be telling the Minister about new DHB proposals for future development, however, the over riding impression that I get is that the Minister will be the one doing the telling.
I don't think that DHB even considered that they would lose this, not even for a moment and so no plan b existed. They could have, at any time over the last couple of years, adopted a mutual solution as suggested by the DPPT, but chose to press on with a doomed private equity sale instead.
I am quite frankly stunned that the supposedly switched on and intelligent businessmen at the DHB remained so blithely unaware that their chosen course was set for disaster and rejection despite the very clear and very large hints provided along the way by the Government, the Town, their users and their MP.
