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  I would prefer to see the port remain a Trust Port and have not yet lost all hope that this will happen since both this government and the last have been prevaricating over it for years and seem most reluctant to bite the bullet.
  
  Both political parties locally are desperately trying to distance themselves from having anything to do with the sale of the port.
  
  Charlie Elphicke's latest newsletter manages to blame it on Labour four times in two short paragraphs: "Fighting Labour's port sell-off........ The Labour Government started a privatisation process to sell off our port to the French or whoever.....However Charlie has succeeded in stopping Labour's sell off so far....... If Ministers throw out Labour's sell off plan........" (a bit rich seeing that the Conservatives have flogged off all the rest of our national infrastructure).
  
  Clair Hawkins meanwhile states "The Dover and Deal Labour Party has opposed port privatisation and campaigned against any sale of the port ever since the then Tory government first started selling off trust ports in the 1980s."
  
  If it does get sold off, then I would much prefer the DPPT plan to the DHB one, indeed I am a paid up member of the DPPT. Neil Wiggins knows what he is talking about and has produced a comprehensive and fully worked out plan. There is no other plan on the table and all the representations by others are simply a few thin sheets of paper with a few nice-to-haves listed.
  
  Alex - re your points:
  
  Sadly, I see no chance whatsover of restoring rail transport for freight from the Western Docks. There is a ten billion pound railway running under the channel linking England and France. Nobody in their right mind is going to spend hundreds of millions to build train ferry berths, train ferries, trackwork, and a new Shakespeare Tunnel in order to carry next to nothing because the existing railway does it so much better.
  
  The port toll has been discussed endlessly over the years, not least on this forum, and has never happened because the EU says no. It has been done in the past but that was when we were an independent country and not a member of the European community. KCC mooted it again fairly recently and nothing has come of it.

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