Today’s jokey front page about Brexit aside it is very good news indeed that the Newhaven ferry service has been saved. Perhaps that shouldn’t have been a massive surprise given that it is still a commercially attractive proposition.

What has been especially pleasing is the warm words that surrounded the ferry link summit in France earlier this week.

That many high profile figures attended the talk spoke volumes for the importance of this link obviously to Newhaven but to Sussex and the south in particular.

And the renewed marketing push to promote both Sussex and Normandy is a welcome example of entente cordiale indeed.

This sort of co-operation is a fantastic example of international co-operation although at this stage we will leave it the EU debaters to argue about whether it would have been quite so strong had we been outside the EU.

Both Sussex and Normandy are fantastically rich in beauty, culture and tourist opportunities. We have beautiful countryside so do they. We have upped our food and drink offer to almost rival theirs while they don’t quite have the city to

rival the quirkiness of Brighton they do have wondrous seaside resorts like Deauville.

In truth tourism traffic has been a little one way in the past, Francophiles heading to soak up Normandy more than the French heading to Blighty.

We could do with that to change. Once more Normans, and not just those of us here who can trace ancestry back to 1066, sail over to Sussex we are pretty sure they would keep returning.

The more you examine it the more what unites Normandy and Sussex is greater than that which divides.