P&O voices fears over Dover privatisation plan
P&O Ferries has hit out at Dover Harbour Board (DHB) over its “glossy PR campaign and soothing reassurances” to win public support for its £400 million (US$640m) privatisation plan for the port, IFW reports.
A six-page letter from P&O Ferries CEO Helen Deeble to, among others, Secretary of State for Transport Philip Hammond, is a hard hitting response to the Department for Transport’s review of guidelines for selling publicly owned ports.
The review, put together after DHB submitted an alternative purchase plan for the port, is still waiting government approval.
In the letter, also sent to members of the government Transport Select Committee and Kent MPs, Deeble said a major concern of the three principal ferry operators – P&O, SeaFrance and DFDS Seaways – was the “monopoly nature of the port” in providing ferry berths.
“There are no other deepwater ports in the vicinity suitable for the existing operators’ vessels,” she said.
She also raised serious concerns about the nature and extent of the privatisation plans.
“The proposed structure and emphasis on profit growth act as an open encouragement to increase tariffs with impunity,” she wrote.
The three operators believed DHB was “abusing its dominant position”, and that the situation “will be exacerbated after privatisation unless control mechanisms are in place.”
In the letter Deeble told Hammond that the proposed sell-off “remains a plan to privatise a monopoly for the benefit of limited and specific interested parties.”
She said: “Our feeling is that the revised guidelines have been hijacked by DHB to assuage local feeling, using a slick campaign of confusion.
The three major ferry operators between them carry 60% of the freight and tourist shortsea traffic crossing the Channel and, wrote Deeble, have in the past provided “lifeline” services for traffic disrupted by the breakdown of other transport providers – citing the 2008 tunnel fire as an example.
Deeble urged the government to take responsibility itself over the sale of the port. The letter said: “We strongly urge that additional criteria is needed in respect of protection for existing and new stakeholders.
“The chosen scheme should be subject to: (i) agreement over the long-term tariff and related capital expenditure plan, and (ii) ring-fencing or return of the £60 million built up over several years by joint agreement between the ferry operators and the trust port of DHB in anticipation of the Terminal 2 development.
“We had been told that DHB intended to ring-fence these funds but now understand these funds will now be used to fund their own proposed community trust, the costs of privatisation and the DHB pension scheme. For us, this tarnishes the whole process of transition from trust port to private entity.”
DHB CEO Bob Goldfield told IFW: “There is nothing new here. We support the new criteria and we also feel that our scheme, as submitted in January 2010, meets, at a minimum, the spirit and objectives of the new requirements.
“We have consulted widely, including with our major stakeholders, the ferry companies, and we will continue to do so.
“Our most recent set of consultations have shown growing support for the DHB scheme and we look forward to a positive decision from government in the fullness of time.”
A six-page letter from P&O Ferries CEO Helen Deeble to, among others, Secretary of State for Transport Philip Hammond, is a hard hitting response to the Department for Transport’s review of guidelines for selling publicly owned ports.
The review, put together after DHB submitted an alternative purchase plan for the port, is still waiting government approval.
In the letter, also sent to members of the government Transport Select Committee and Kent MPs, Deeble said a major concern of the three principal ferry operators – P&O, SeaFrance and DFDS Seaways – was the “monopoly nature of the port” in providing ferry berths.
“There are no other deepwater ports in the vicinity suitable for the existing operators’ vessels,” she said.
She also raised serious concerns about the nature and extent of the privatisation plans.
“The proposed structure and emphasis on profit growth act as an open encouragement to increase tariffs with impunity,” she wrote.
The three operators believed DHB was “abusing its dominant position”, and that the situation “will be exacerbated after privatisation unless control mechanisms are in place.”
In the letter Deeble told Hammond that the proposed sell-off “remains a plan to privatise a monopoly for the benefit of limited and specific interested parties.”
She said: “Our feeling is that the revised guidelines have been hijacked by DHB to assuage local feeling, using a slick campaign of confusion.
The three major ferry operators between them carry 60% of the freight and tourist shortsea traffic crossing the Channel and, wrote Deeble, have in the past provided “lifeline” services for traffic disrupted by the breakdown of other transport providers – citing the 2008 tunnel fire as an example.
Deeble urged the government to take responsibility itself over the sale of the port. The letter said: “We strongly urge that additional criteria is needed in respect of protection for existing and new stakeholders.
“The chosen scheme should be subject to: (i) agreement over the long-term tariff and related capital expenditure plan, and (ii) ring-fencing or return of the £60 million built up over several years by joint agreement between the ferry operators and the trust port of DHB in anticipation of the Terminal 2 development.
“We had been told that DHB intended to ring-fence these funds but now understand these funds will now be used to fund their own proposed community trust, the costs of privatisation and the DHB pension scheme. For us, this tarnishes the whole process of transition from trust port to private entity.”
DHB CEO Bob Goldfield told IFW: “There is nothing new here. We support the new criteria and we also feel that our scheme, as submitted in January 2010, meets, at a minimum, the spirit and objectives of the new requirements.
“We have consulted widely, including with our major stakeholders, the ferry companies, and we will continue to do so.
“Our most recent set of consultations have shown growing support for the DHB scheme and we look forward to a positive decision from government in the fullness of time.”