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Howard, exactly this is what I've been trying to explain all along regards the privatisation proposals: Almost all the money that comes out of the port as income, comes by way of the ferry operators.
Under the present DHB and p/p proposals, to finance all that needs to be paid for: T2, works at Estern Docks, a pension fund, the wages of DHB workers, regeneration money for Dover, the port administration will have to depend on tariffs coming from the ferry companies - and to a lesser extent cruise-liners - which use the port.
DHB's annual profit is quoted at about £10 million, which is evidently quite insufficent to fund all these obligations.
No matter who owned the Port, be it DHB, a private owner, p/p, the result would always be the same: it wouldn't function without substantially increasing the tariffs that ferry operators pay.
A private owner would also have to get back the invested sum of purchase, adding an extra penny's worth to their ambitions to make the port profitable (for themselves) as well as meeting all the above-mentioned obligations.
Hence what I stated all along:
1) to privatise the Port in any way is not in the Port's favour, as whoever runs the Port should not be someone who aims at recuperating an invested sum of money needed to buy it in the first place.
2) that the only way to increase profits without increasing tariffs on ferry operators is to introduce a port-levy in all British ports that would be divided among the local Councils (Town, District, Council), who would each invest this port-income in their local budget (leavin ample space for regeneration).
If all British ports would have the same levy for port-service, then this would not affect ferry operators in Dover, as the same levy would be in place at the Channel Tunnel.
As stated many times, this levy would be an equivalent to European road-tolls which we do not have in Britain, and therefore would not be considered unfair towards European countries which don't have a port-levy.
I think Gov. will realise that this is the best option.