Dover seeks sale

The port has held trust status for 400 years, circling all revenues back into its own finances. The price, between £300m to £350m, will help fund a new ferry terminal in the western docks, an investment likely to total some £400 million.

Last year, the UK’s Department for Transport told major trust ports that it would work with them to explore “options for commercialisation of assets”. However, to sweeten the pill and disarm opposition, the harbour Board also heralds in the establishment of a locally based charitable trust to channel funds to local community projects on a long-term basis, something that, it says, is not concordant with its present trust status.

It appears this might mean a gift of up to 10% of the port’s equity goes to the charity. Part of a statement by the Board said: “This will provide, for the first time in Dover’s history, the opportunity for the local community to have a direct stake in the port’s commercial success and to benefit directly from the sharing in that success.”

The UK’s other half-dozen major trust ports, like Poole and Tyne, may find the pressure to follow suit mounting. Industry sources say that though there might be a wait-and-see approach to how Dover pans out, looking ahead it might well be the initiative that the Trust ports need to get themselves properly financed for the future.