The post you are reporting:
Hi Howard, I know all the Civil Servants names that are involved with Dover, as I know the name of the Minister and how to reach all of them at need. Seeing a project through to a successful conclusion takes a lot more than a letter or few.
As the previous period, which ended on 20th December 2012 was all about the DHB plans, the Government were solely responding to that directly and only indirectly, through the wording of the decision letter and subsequent instruction to DHB, to the DPPT proposal.
Our original offer was made more than 2 years ago and was responded to in a positive way by the Government at the time, but as the consultation then was whether to allow the DHB scheme to proceed or not, they could not legally accept our offer.
Two years is a long time in business and politics, so now that the DHB scheme has been rejected and the community offer can be properly considered, it is necessary to bring it up to date. DPPT is currently updating our offer for the port with all the latest traffic numbers and projections from Govt. statistical and forecasting models for short sea traffic. We are also getting renewed letters of support from the port's main stakeholders, legal opinion and banks. Once the formal offer has been signed off by the DPPT board and we are ready again to proceed to full due diligence, then we will again write to the DfT with it.
To date, the response to our continued efforts and on-going verbal discussions with government has been positive.