The Chairman of Dover Harbour Board, R.K.Dibble, has been the recipient of a further eye-watering letter from yet another major port user. He must be afraid to open his mail these days. This time it is from C.B.Madderson, the MD of George Hammonds PLC, and is scathing in its condemnation of the unilateral manner in which the board has acted.
Hammonds supply the stevedoring services for discharging the refrigerated cargoships which call at the port with fruit from Central America and West Africa. The cargoships require the services of the tugs for berthing and departing. The tugs are unavailable due to the entirely forseeable ramifications of DHB's precipitate declaration that they are making a large proportion of essential port staff redundant and that port users are to be lumbered with making their own arrangements in future, much against their wishes.
Dover Express article on the "This is Kent" website:
http://tinyurl.com/6mgrd7
"Private and Confidential" letter from C.B.Madderson to R.K.Dibble (in "Related Content" accompanying the above article):
http://i.thisis.co.uk/274201/binaries/hammonds.pdf