Port of Ramsgate revival stalls again
Plus Reform councillor suspended, still no meetings at KCC, news in brief, and more
In our post-Brexit world where the Port of Dover is under immense strain, how is another port a bit further around the coast able to just sit empty, despite the government, local council, and even the Port of Dover wanting it to start running again? As plans for the Port of Ramsgate fall through once again, we look at why things can’t seem to get moving. Plus, a Reform councillor is suspended from the party after barely a month in the job, KCC meetings continue to be cancelled, news in brief, and lots more.
Port of Ramsgate revival stalls again
Ramsgate’s port has long promised a revival that never quite arrives. Once a key link between Kent and mainland Europe, it now stands largely unused as a symbol of the many bold schemes and missed opportunities that have marked Britain’s post-Brexit coastal ambitions. Another attempt to bring back cross-Channel ferries to Ramsgate has floundered despite government funding, interest from the Port of Dover, and a bout of optimism that the port could get back on its feet again.
Ramsgate’s heyday as a commercial port faded over the past two decades. The final regular ferry service to Ostend sputtered out in 2013 when TransEuropa Ferries went under with little ceremony. Once busy with lorries and holidaymakers, the port’s roll-on, roll-off berths fell silent. Since then, the harbour has watched a carousel of schemes to bring back ferry operations, most of them quietly abandoned or loudly overpromised.
Reading some of the headlines after Brexit, you’d have thought alternative ports like Ramsgate were about to enjoy a golden age. Ministers warned that Dover couldn’t do it alone, and ‘supply chain resilience’ became the phrase of the moment. Famously, the government handed out a multi-million-pound contract for emergency Brexit ferries to Seaborne Freight, a company that neglected the detail of actually owning any ships.
More recently, Thanet District Council decided to try again, launching a formal tender to return ferries to the port. For a fleeting moment, it seemed possible. The Port of Dover expressed genuine interest in operating the venture, weighing up Ramsgate’s proximity to Europe, decent road links, and potential for sharing resources. Doug Bannister, the Port of Dover’s Chief Executive, clearly saw the upsides in a letter to the Chief Executive at Thanet: “As the next nearest port to the Continent, Ramsgate offers a strong advantage in efficient shipping connections with the UK’s largest trading partner, the EU.” He talked up “unmatched resilience” and “a very efficient resourcing model” that could benefit both ports.
This doesn’t appear to be empty talk. Dover’s management seemed to see real potential for Ramsgate and believed there was room in the market. But enthusiasm ran aground on hard numbers. Bannister wrote, “In short, the capital investment that we felt was required compared to the immediately available market held more risk than we could accept at that point.” Even with £7.6m of Levelling Up funding earmarked for Ramsgate’s revival, the upgrades and dredging needed to make the port commercially viable were simply too much for Dover to swallow. At the same time, Dover has been busy preparing for the EU’s new Entry/Exit System and reorganising its own border controls. “We have made the decision to concentrate our efforts on successfully delivering these key projects at this time,” Bannister explained.
As the months rolled by and no operator could be enticed, Thanet District Council faced a familiar dilemma: Spend the government’s levelling up funding that had been allocated to the port or lose it entirely. With no ferries on the horizon, the council has chosen to redirect the money to other regeneration projects across the district.
Meanwhile, Ramsgate soldiers on as a working harbour, just not the one promised by so many grand visions. The marina is busy, and the wind farm support vessels come and go, but the docks mostly sit empty. For every round of renewed optimism, there’s a practical reminder that commercial ferry operations are still a distant hope.
Ramsgate is a reminder that bold government plans, like the ones proposed for a post-Brexit world, rarely survive their collision with real economics and industry caution. Dover, for all the dire warnings about bottlenecks, remains the top dog for Channel crossings, while Ramsgate’s future seems permanently under review. There is no shortage of optimism or ambition, but finding someone willing to risk millions on a true revival has proved harder than ever.
Maybe one day, the right mix of cash, crisis, and sheer bloody-mindedness will put Ramsgate back on the cross-Channel map. For now, Ramsgate waits for a ship that may never come in.
Have a Kent story you think we might be interested in? Get in touch via hello(at)kentcurrent(dot)news - We’re always happy to talk off the record in the first instance…
Kent’s Reform administration loses councillor after just 39 days
A cynical political observer, or someone who remembers the UKIP opposition years of Kent County Council, may well have asked how long it would be before Reform lost their first councillor. Politicians in startup right-wing parties often seem to find it difficult to stay together, but even a cynic might have been surprised by exactly how quickly KCC’s Reform group found itself losing one of their own.
Indeed, it took just 39 days from the local elections for the first one to fall, with Cliftonville councillor Daniel Taylor finding himself sitting as an independent after being suspended from the party. For those playing at home, that’s ten days less than Liz Truss managed to last as Prime Minister.
What is unclear at the moment is exactly why Cllr Taylor has been suspended from the party, with a Reform spokesperson telling the BBC’s Michael Keohan that it was “following a matter that is now with the police.”
This contrasts with a spokesperson from the East Thanet branch of Reform, covering Cllr Taylor’s division, who told the Isle of Thanet News that the suspension was ‘news to them.’
We approached Cllr Taylor for comment on his suspension, but received no response.
There’s still not much getting done at KCC
Last week, we wrote about a number of Kent County Council overview and scrutiny committee meetings being cancelled or postponed. At the time, a spokesperson for KCC told us that “consideration” was being given to “deferring business to relevant July meetings” when there were no time-sensitive issues on the agenda.
Happily, it turns out there was nothing time sensitive at any committee meeting in June, because every single one, from health to crime to governance to environment and transport to children’s services have all been cancelled or postponed. As a result, it will now be at least two months after the local elections before any kind of scrutiny of decision making processes can be taken.
In more getting things done news:
New KCC leader Linden Kemkaran has written to the government to request a minimum four month extension to the deadline for local government reorganisation proposals, saying the existing November deadline would be “almost impossible to meet.”
Cllr Kemkaran also got into a spat with Dover and Deal Labour MP Mike Tapp, who accused Reform in Kent of using “populist rhetoric.” Kemkaran fought back against that claim by again using the language of “invasion” when talking about migrant boat crossings.
Cllr Kemkaran went on the Telegraph podcast and argued that migrants to the UK should learn English with Duolingo rather than council-funded lessons.
Reports also surfaced that Cllr Kemkaran is away on holiday at the moment, with East Thanet Labour MP Polly Billington claiming “KCC is in chaos.”
Speaking to the Times, Nathaniel Fried, one of the Reform DOGE team sent into KCC before resigning days later, discovered that the council is struggling along with IT systems “nearly as old” as him.
The Conservatives have written to the Information Commissioner, requesting they investigate Reform’s DOGE project, calling it a “cyber-security disaster waiting to happen.”
In response to claims about the performance of the Reform administration at KCC, Deputy Leader Brian Collins has been dispatched on the media round to reassure everyone that they were “very calm,” “very collected,” and “focused.”
In brief
🚢 Campaigners are worried that ships are travelling dangerously close to the wreck of the SS Montogomery in the Thames Estuary. The sunken vessel sits two kilometres north of Sheerness and is loaded with 14,000 tonnes of explosives.
🚄 Eurostar has pledged to operate new international rail services to Geneva and Frankfurt but stopped short of offering any Kent services. Ashford MP Sojan Joseph called the move “short-sighted.”
🏘️ Canterbury City Council will hold a special planning committee next week to decide on a 120 home development north of Sturry. While previous plans for the same site were rejected in 2018, officers recommend that the plans be approved this time.
🏡 Across the border in Ashford, the borough’s planning committee will decide on three significant developments next week. Officers recommend that one development of 55 homes near Tenterden be rejected but that 121 new homes in Tenterden be approved, alongside 180 new homes in Willesborough.
🏗️ Meanwhile, Folkestone & Hythe District Council will decide whether or not to approve plans for a revised Folkestone Harbour scheme after initial plans were dramatically thrown out earlier this year. The new plans tweak the number of car parking spaces for visitors, the housing mix to include more 3-bedroom homes and the designs for apartments and shops around the former railway station.
🌳 The University of Kent is proposing to build 2,000 new homes on land it owns north of its Canterbury campus. Anti-housing campaigners have proposed the land becoming a park instead, and no doubt the financially struggling university will do that instead.
🍷 Swale Borough Council’s licensing committee will decide next week whether to grant an alcohol licence to Ours, a new town centre cafe. The committee will assess the application because it is supposedly contentious, with one person opposing the licence and 42 writing in support of it.
👎 Maidstone Borough Council has been considering buying a drone to tackle antisocial behaviour but has decided it’s a bad idea after discovering it will cost up to £37,500 in the first year and that Kent Police wouldn’t use it even if the council bought it for them.
👷 Meanwhile, Maidstone Borough Council will spend up to £7.7m to upgrade its offices to make them more environmentally friendly. The move comes as Maidstone Borough Council is set to be abolished in the next few years.
☀️ Sevenoaks District Council is considering leasing a former landfill site to South East Water for a solar farm. The energy produced would power a nearby water treatment plant and, happily, generate income for the council for 32 years.
🚲 Efforts by Canterbury City Council to create a bike rental scheme in the city centre have failed after no operator came forward to run it.
🛍️ Kent’s largest indoor market will open later this month, as the Petticoat Lane Emporium opens in the former Wilko in Folkestone. The 17,000 sq ft space has already recruited 80 traders and has room for 120 more.
📖 Author David Whitehouse has written about his new book in the Observer, where he explores the mystery of Margate woman who disappeared without a trace. The Telegraph gives the “genius” book five stars.
🚛 National Highways have released some new images of what the Lower Thames Crossing will look like. If everything runs to schedule, you’ll be able to compare them with reality in 2031.
More Currents
Creative regeneration has transformed Margate and Folkestone, but is everyone feeling the benefits? That’s the question we explored in our midweek deep dive into art-led regeneration projects in Kent.
Is art really saving Kent's struggling towns?
If you’d said in the early 2000s that Margate would become a weekend destination for Londoners or that Folkestone would be talked about as one of the UK’s most vibrant small towns, you would have sounded hopelessly optimistic. For decades, once the seaside boom had busted, these places were famous for their empty hotels, discount shops, and a slow decline marked by shuttered amusements and a constant drip of negative headlines. Local and national coverage at the time regularly described the decline of Kent’s seaside resorts, painting a picture of places struggling to find a future as traditional industries and holidaymakers disappeared.
Our next big interview is coming up on Saturday with Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott. We discuss crime rates across Kent, recent election results for his party, and whether he is eyeing a run to be Mayor of Kent. Our deep dives and full interviews are only available to our paid supporters. Those lovely people are the only funding we have to keep this project going, so if you’re enjoying our work, please consider supporting us for as little as £1.15 per week.
Footnotes
Follow us on social media! We’re on Facebook and BlueSky for now.
If you enjoy the Kent Current, please share it with your friends, family, associates, and even your enemies. We have no meaningful marketing budget, so we rely on word of mouth from our readers to find new readers.