MP takes up battle to save ferry route

Maria Caulfield, MP for Lewes, will join a passengers’ group in Dieppe to meet the president of the French Department (regional government).

She will be attempting to ensure the long-term future of the Newhaven service after legal action in February cast doubt over its crucial public funding.

Residents, businesses and politicians on both sides of the Channel will be eagerly awaiting clarification at tonight’s talks.

Concerns will also be raised at the meeting about the possible impact Brexit would have on the future of the service.

Conservative Ms Caulfield, who will join members of the Transmanche Users Group (TUG), said: “I am working hard to ensure that the new contract is signed and contains no clauses that could be to the detriment of Newhaven.

“This is why I will be at the meeting in Dieppe on Monday.

“The Newhaven ferry brings many benefits to the town, ensuring jobs and investment in local businesses as well as the infrastructure and better links with the wider transport network.”

Last year the ferry, which employs 250 people, transported a record 360,000 tourist passengers, mainly English visiting France, and 51,000 freight journeys, mainly French and Spanish lorries bringing goods to the UK.

The route is owned by the French regional council in Dieppe and managed by Syndicat Mixte de Promotion de l’Activité Transmanche (SMPAT), a public organisation.

Last December SMPAT agreed to extend the subsidy into 2017, signing an agreement for ferry operator DFDS to continue running the service.

However, a legal challenge launched by Eurotunnel over unfair trading practices led to the DFDS contract being torn up earlier this year. The Danish company was told it would cease operations in the summer and a future operator would be sought through public tender with a revised contract. DFDS has already put in a bid to run the service into the future.

Newhaven Town Council is among the stakeholders working to encourage cross-Channel tourism.

Susie Mullins, head of strategic development at the council, said: “We have to give confidence to the Seine Maritime (the region of France Dieppe is in) that we are a region with a future and a region worth investing in.”

She pointed out that in the light of Newhaven’s other problems – recent closure of shops and banks – there was a danger of a vicious circle effect if the ferry line closed, removing another revenue stream from the area.

Rod Main, 59, a software engineer and member of the TUG, said: “At the moment it’s potentially under the threat of closure. That’s the worst-case scenario. But I think it’s essential for both France and England to keep the ferry service going, especially for Normandy and Sussex.

“If we can get more tourists coming from France and more freight going the other way we can make the crossing really successful.”

The Argus will be at the meeting and carrying a report later this week.

TENSE WAIT FOR OUTCOME OF MAKE-OR-BREAK SESSION

JUST five months ago, the future of the Newhaven to Dieppe ferry seemed as secure as it had been for years.

After five years of legal wrangling, in December the Supreme Court backed the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) decision to ban Eurotunnel subsidiary MyFerryLink from operating cross-Channel ferries.

The CMA had argued that Eurotunnel already controlled too much cross-Channel traffic.

As a result the Newhaven line was bolstered by a commitment from the French Department of Seine Maritime to continue its €20 million a year subsidy into 2017.

And Danish-owned DFDS, which has run the service since 2012, was set to carry on shipping tourists and freight to and from France.

The route is owned by the French regional council in Dieppe and managed by public body Syndicat Mixte de Promotion de l’Activité Transmanche (SMPAT).

At the time, Carsten Jensen, senior vice president and head of DFDS in the UK, said: “We are extremely pleased as this is good news for customers in the UK as well as our French and UK staff who work hard to market and operate this excellent and important trade and tourism link between France and the UK.”

The upbeat mood was a far cry from the dog days of 2013 when The Argus reported that the route’s 150th year might be its last as fears mounted the subsidy would be pulled in the face of mounting dissatisfaction from French taxpayers.

That threat eventually passed and the line was set for plain sailing when disaster struck this January.

Eurotunnel took its opposition to the subsidy of the route to a French court, arguing the agreement was contrary to the principle of freedom of trade and industry and there was no public interest in maintaining the route.

The case was heard at a French court of appeal in January when judges cleared SMPAT to continue running the route with a private operator.

However, the court upheld one of Eurotunnel’s contract issues regarding compensation and as such judges deemed the contract should be reclassified.

The DFDS contract was therefore held to be invalid and judges ordered it to be terminated.

SMPAT bosses said they would appeal against the ruling through the courts but in the meantime would draw up a new contract and issue an invitation to tender.

Last week a DFDS spokeswoman confirmed the process was under way. She said: “DFDS is participating in a public tender to deliver operation of the route but we do not know the outcome which has to be decided by the SMPAT.”

So there is a great deal of clarification to be hoped for at tonight’s make-or-break meeting overlooking the Dieppe harbour. It is to be hoped that Pascal Martin, president of Seine Maritime, can reassure nervous politicians and passengers that the subsidy will continue despite the court ruling.

But further questions – over the public tender and even over international relations – are unlikely to be resolved in a single evening.

Paul Boswell, until recently Newhaven’s deputy mayor and a long-standing campaigner for the ferry service, said: “I hope they’re going to see fit to continue it.

“But what I’d ask if I were going is what they foresee would happen if next month we vote to come out of Europe? If the country says we’re not playing any more, will they cancel the subsidy?”

Fellow Transmanche User Group member Rod Main, 59, will also be attending the meeting.

He said: “I’m hoping that the French will make it very clear what the future is for the ferry service.

“Around 80 per cent of the freight using the service comes from Europe – mainly from France and Spain – and about 80 per cent of the tourists come from the UK.

“So we need to get a better balance and encourage French people to come to Sussex and see what it has to offer and have English freight firms see this as a better alternative to Portsmouth or to driving round the M25 to Dover, where yes it’s a shorter crossing but you land much further north.

“It’s under threat and the Seine Maritime department is putting a lot of money into it so it’s important to hear what the president has to say.”

He won’t be the only one listening with bated breath.

LOSS WOULD BE A BLOW FOR THE TOWN

WHEN the Co-operative supermarket in Newhaven Square announced in January it would be closing its doors for the last time, locals greeted the news as the final nail in the coffin for the town.

Geraldine Novell, 69, a resident of 20 years summed it up when she told The Argus that Newhaven was going to rack and ruin.

In 2014 the town’s last bank, a branch of HSBC, shut down because it was no longer deemed commercially viable.

Newhaven has suffered decline since the end of the Second World War when the maritime and rail freight trade began to drop off.

The goods sidings at Newhaven Harbour Station closed in 1968 and the railway wharf shut in 1996.

The town was briefly encouraged by promises of a “world-leading” leisure centre and water park in 2012 but those hopes evaporated.

Paul Boswell, secretary for Newhaven Chamber of Commerce, said: “It is a vicious circle.

“Fewer shops means we have less footfall, less footfall means fewer shops and so it goes on.

“This will make it very difficult for our remaining shops to make a living.”

The Government has designated the town an Enterprise Zone to try to reverse its declining fortunes but this venture won’t begin until April 2017.

But between now and 2020, more than £80 million is being invested in Newhaven: the town has a new University Technical College and in January a new-build combined fire station, police hub and council contact office opened in Meeching Road.

The ferry line provides a key draw for visitors to come to – or at least go through – Newhaven and its loss would be an unbearable blow for a town still reeling from closure after closure.

We must hope good news emerges tonight.