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Keith - do not misuse, misinterpret, misquote or misrepresent my views again. Something that you have a great tendency to do. Try expressing your own views instead without using me or anyone else as some kind of smoke screen or comfort blanket.
My main interest is breaking the deadlock over the development and regeneration of Dover. We have been going round and round in declining circles ever since the end of WW2.
We need something big and dramatic to transform our town or we will just keep on getting the same old, same old, as we have before.
Right now and for a long time past Dover has got nothing, not a bean, out of having the Port. DHB, despite their forced recent claims, do not care a toss about Dover. Most of those who work in the Port do not live in Dover and most of those do not spend their money in the town either. Once upon a time most people working in the Port at least lived in the town and Dover benefited from the jobs and what was spent in the town. Certainly you can bet that almost all the higher earners in the Port will not live and spend in the town.
If privatisation was the only way then yes I would go for it and, in that case, any benefit that accrued to Dover would depend in the manner of privatisation. In previous threads I have explained that there are many ways that could be done, some better than others. The reason for that is what I previously referred to, the Port in it current state is useless to the town.
Yes, there are problems with the full commercial privatisation, whatever method, but in my original judgement these were worthwhile to change the Ports status and relationship to the town.
Fortunately there is now a better way.
One that does not carry the problems I mentioned of the full commercial privatisation and one that will maximise benefits to the town, mutualisation with the People's Port.
This is not the same as privatisation and does not convey any kind of equity ownership to any of the financiers in the City. The model proposed by the PPT maximises benefit to the town and places equity ownership with local people in perpetuity, or at least in a far more certain and real manner than any other ownership model including state ownership.
Ed's rather simplistic correlation between privatisation and mutualisation is simply wrong. These are two very different beasts.
I apologise for repeating much that has been said before but it is clear that some people have either not taken any notice, ignore what they have been told, do not understand or are incapable of understanding. It can be any of these and they can make their own minds up which applies to them...
I suspect that this latest news may well be good news for the PPT but I want to find out more. The easiest thing for the government to do would be just to approve the DHB plan. A mutualisation of the Port would be more problematical in respect of EU law so it seems HMG may be treading carefully.
I will be interested in what Neil has to say about this.