Button wrote:Well I'm blowed - is that the same 22,000 people you said paid £10 each to the DPPT?
It depends entirely upon how you define 'indirectly'. But the reality is, of course, that DHB provide a substantial source of employment for the area. I say 'area' because the majority of employees do not live in Dover itself. And they maintain a rather lovely sea front. No doubt. It's an asset to the town and who wouldn't love sitting there with the white cliffs as a backdrop, watching the ferries entering and leaving the port.
But it's a lot more complex than that. One of my earlier bosses, Sir Jeffrey Stirling (now Lord Stirling of Plaistow) was desperate to take over control of the port when he acquired Townsend Thoresen in the mid 80s. He just couldn't believe that the loading of
his ships was controlled by an organisation not accountable to either shareholders or customers. He was close, very close, to Thatcher. I remember him whizzing off from Zeebrugge in a helicopter in the hours after the Herald disaster because he couldn't delay his meeting with the PM.
Sadly (or otherwise) his aspirations never came to fruition. Thatcher got turfed out, he found old age crept up on him and the issue of the validity of trust ports left the public eye. And then came the People's Port, starting off in a fanfare of public involvement but then slowly withering back to what has effectively always been the status quo.
Do we care? I suspect the answer has to be probably not. But if the people of Dover simply remain apathetic, then nothing will change. Between an inward looking DHB and a self-serving DDC, we are where we are. No amount of PR gobbledygook will change that.