howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
14 September 2010
22:4770734that was an interresting read vic, especially the bit about the former 300 workers.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
14 September 2010
22:5370740At is very time I am looking at the whole of the proposed transfer scheme, because I have to write back to the Dept for Transport before the 4th of OCT,IF anyone woud like me to put their bit about the port in that letter please tell me or put it on the forum and it will be put in even if i do not agree with what you are saying. Thank you.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
14 September 2010
22:5770744sorry vic, i have tried to follow the plot but it tends to go over my head at times.
i will speak to posh barry's brief first thing tomorrow, i understand he is still working at getting george michael out though.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
14 September 2010
23:0370747He is better off where he is now Howard.
15 September 2010
09:5070806Butwhy only 4 weeks inside? H should be made to do the full term behind bars. I notice someone has written "WHAM" where the drug fuelled drivers car came to rest. Made me chuckle.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
15 September 2010
09:5170807Apparently he was heard singing 'Lock me up before you go go'.
PG.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
15 September 2010
10:4870824considering he has been convicted before surely the sentence should have been a lot more severe.
it seems that letting him off before has led him to believe that he can just carry on.
15 September 2010
12:5270868Damn right Howard.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
15 September 2010
19:4370967Yes I am reading it Vic
However I have yet to read a compelling argument against change - frankly the "cos we have always done it that way" argument does not cut it
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
15 September 2010
19:5570978Thereis more but I have just got back in and going to sit down to the football on the TV.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
15 September 2010
22:1571042Representation 18.
I write concerning the proposed sale of the port of Dover; at the general election, all the candidates who stood in the Dover constituency campaigned against the sale of the port.
Iknow that we live in difficult economic times and that the sale of the Port of Dover would realise some £500million ,money that the Treasury could well do with in these times however I must ask you not to sell the Port of Dover.
Without bring able to give you exact figures,the overwhelming majority of local people are very strongly opposed to the sale of a national asset.
The Port of Dover generates a profit every year and that is something to be grateful for in the difficult times ,the temptation is to sell off the Port in order to help with the budget deficit,and the monies it would raisemust obviously be a serious,temptation.Nevertheless, the figure of £500m represents a significant undervaluing of its real worth,and I implore you not to sell off the nations heritage for short term gain,the Port was given a Royal Charter in 1606 as a reward for the loyalty of the Cinque Ports towards the Crown,and I personally believe that 400+years of heritage in addition to the fact that the Port still contributes to the Treasury is significant enough to merit that the Port remains as part of Her Majestys Governments asset register.
16 September 2010
00:0371055Hmm, I like No 18 Vic.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
16 September 2010
17:0671176I think you can see now that the public of Dover do not wish to see our port sold off . I am just off out but later on will do some more Representions about the PORT.
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
21 September 2010
00:3571783Two posts below copied from Dover Ferry Photos Forum. The first is the interview with Bob Goldfield in The Times quoted by Paul Watkins in #11 above. The second is from Lloyds List concerning the letter which Helen Deeble of P&O Ferries wrote to the Transport Secretary as a result of reading the interview.
Dover's boss is braced to steer port in a storm
Robert Lea On the money
September 10 2010 8:36PM
Dover's management has applied to be privatised because it says it needs to raise £400 million to build a second terminal
There's one man who could not care less whether the Port of Dover is sold off to an overseas buyer. Which, given that that man is Bob Goldfield, chief executive of the Port of Dover, is a brave stance, what with the amount of emotion emanating from the impending privatisation of the gateway to England in which the White Cliffs, Vera Lynn, a thousand years of history and sanctity of the Cinque Ports have all been invoked.
Here's what Mr Goldfield has to say: "There is a lot of irrational emotion surrounding this, playing on people's prejudices and fears.
"What we should be having is an intelligent business debate. Does the nationality of a future owner of the port matter? What matters is that the owners share a vision for the future success of this port. And anyway money is global. Is there any such thing as 'British money'? Does 'British money' own Heathrow, or your water company or your electricity and gas company?" He could, of course, also cite the ownership of the UK's two busiest and most important container ports, Felixstowe and Southampton, respectively owned by Li Ka Shing of Hong Kong and Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai.
The Port of Dover is an anomaly — taxpayer-owned because it could not be sold off in the 1991 ports privatisation amid the construction of what has become Dover's great infrastructure rival, the Channel Tunnel.
Dover's management has applied to be privatised because it says it needs to raise £400 million to build a second terminal to increase roll-on, roll-off capacity by 66 per cent. New money would also enable Dover to diversify its operations, perhaps developing an industrial zone that would reverse the economic degeneration of the town. Expansion is about "security of supply", Mr Goldfield says. It is about ensuring that Dover is able to manage increased trade and offering an alternative should the Channel Tunnel go out of action triggering Operation Stack and a 60 mile tailback up the M2.
The Goldfield plan being overseen by NM Rothschild is to sell about 80 per cent of the port to a new owner or operator; gift 15 per cent to a new local community trust with a promise of £15 million over five years and future dividends; and 5 per cent in an employee share ownership plan in which no one executive would be allowed to hold shares equal to more than 1½ times his salary — in the case of Mr Goldfield a maximum £250,000 stake. The sale of that 80 per cent could raise between £300 million and £600 million for the Treasury, says Mr Goldfield. The alternative, not to expand, invites capacity constraints and the degradation of customer service akin to pre-Terminal 5 Heathrow.
There is another alternative: the "People's Port" proposals of Charlie Elphicke, Dover's Tory MP, which envisages the local community owning the port and funding expansion through bond issues. When or whether the Treasury gets any money is another issue. Mr Goldfield dismisses the plan as "undeliverable," adding: "We are fully costed. Their's has a large credibility gap."
As it happens the privatisation of Dover will be delayed by several months after (Dubai-owned) P&O Ferries called for an investigation into the port's charges. An inquiry is set to stretch into next year.
The Government could do with this, its first, privatisation being as controversy-free as possible. The good news could be that three early frontrunners to do the deal are not foreign but the London finance houses 3i, Montagu Private Equity and Bridgepoint Capital. But there is also a worst case: word is that the Port of Calais is keenly interested. Dover sold out to Calais? That will be an interesting privatisation to sell to the public.
-------------------------------------
Questions raised over Dover sale details
Friday 17 September 2010 by Roger Hailey
P&O Ferries highlights substantial differences in Dover's plans to set up community trust from sale proceeds
THE increasingly sour relationship between ferry operators and trust port operator Dover Harbour Board over the latter's voluntary privatisation has taken a further twist.
P&O Ferries chief executive Helen Deeble has written to the UK transport secretary asking for clarification, following an interview given by Dover boss Bob Goldfield to a national newspaper.
The ferry operator, which has announced 70 potential job losses at Dover due to the market downturn on the Channel routes, is an opponent of the DHB's particular scheme for privatisation. Fellow Dover ferry operators SeaFrance and DFDS also oppose the DHB proposal.
In her letter to the Department for Transport, Ms Deeble draws attention to what P&O Ferries views as "substantial differences" relating to DHB's plans to establish a community trust for local people out of part of the sale proceeds.
She quotes from the official DHB information document on the privatisation proposal, which states: "DHB's proposal is that Opco [a company limited by shares] should settle a cash sum of £10m ($15.7m) on the Port of Dover Community Trust, together with a further amount of cash specifically earmarked for (immediate) use to subscribe for securities of Opco having a value of £20m at the time of sale.
"This latter element would be cash neutral to Opco, as the sum contributed for the subscription would return to Opco as paid up share capital.
"Opco will also undertake to enter into arrangements to make regular contributions to the PDCT in its early years, so that the PDCT will have an assured income stream during that period."
Mr Goldfield, in a candid interview, was quoted extensively in The Times newsaper about his plans and expectations for the port of Dover.
The Dover boss appears to be paraphrased, but not directly quoted, as indicating that the plan is to "sell about 80% of the port to a new owner and operator; gift 15% to a new local community trust with a promise of £15m over fives years and future dividends, and five percent in an employee share ownership plan in which no one executive would be allowed to hold shares equal to more than 1.5 times his salary."
The article states that the shares cap, in the case of Mr Goldfield, would be "a maximum of £250,000."
The article continues: "The sale of that 80% could raise between £300m and £600m for the treasury."
In her letter, Ms Deeble contends that DHB has been "less clear" on the Employee Share Ownership Trust.
She states: "It appears that up to £5.6m worth of shares may be made available in three tranches. The first two appear to have the 1.5 of salary limit on them but a further £1m of shares issued before the final sale to Opco appear to be outside of this arrangement.
"But if 80% of the port can be sold for up to £600m, that makes the full value £750m — 5% is £37.5m, but the proposals in the information memorandum only amount to £5.7m. Such major difference would be highly concerning without any form of capping mechansim."
Ms Deeble adds: "If the PDCT is reckoned to be allocated shares to the value of £20m and that entitlement is 15% of the total, the maximum value if 80% is sold for £600m would be £112.5m - almost five times more.
"Even at £300m, the percentages are vastly in excess of the cash figures stated in the information memorandum."
Ms Deeble asks the minister in her letter: "Indeed, we are wondering if there is any provable relationship between the cash figures stated in the information memorandum and the comments and statements attributed to Mr Goldfield in the Times?
"Clarification of your understanding of the actual position would be welcomed as it seems to us that the goalposts keep moving."
A spokesman for DHB said that the port operator would not comment on the P&O Ferries letter.