Ramsgate Port & Brett Council Complicit in Act of Environmental Vandalism.

By allowing Brett Aggregates to expand their activities at Ramsgate Port, Thanet Council and Kent County Council and their political leaders will, I believe,  be directly responsible for supporting an act of environmental and historic vandalism on a massive scale.

Yesterday a group of campaigners from the Dover and Deal area handed in a petition of 11,677 signatures to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. The petition opposes plans by Dover Harbour Board (DHB) to dredge 2.5million cubic metres of aggregate from the Goodwin Sands over the next 3 – 4  years. The aggregate will be used in the massive £200 million Dover Port expansion project which begins next year.

Campaigners argue that dredging on this huge scale will damage the unique marine habitat of the Goodwin Sands and will  threaten the survival of a broad range of sea life which depend upon it  including  a colony of 350 grey seals and the Thornback Ray. It is also argued that the removal of a large chunk of the sands will reduce the level of protection provided  by the Goodwins to the East Kent coastline and could result in greater erosion and increased tidal  flooding. Finally, the Goodwin Sands are the location of many historic shipwrecks and the remains of countless Battle of Britain aircraft. As someone committed to protecting the environment and conserving our history, I think this large scale dredging is wrong and I support the campaigners and

Save Goodwin Sands Petition Handed  in to Number 10 Yesterday.
Picture Goodwin Sands SOS Facebook Group

have signed their petition. We will find out in December whether the Government’s Marine Management Organisation (MMO) will, despite numerous objections and the huge petition,  grant a licence to DHB to extract aggregate from the Goodwin Sands.

I believe that Brett’s Ramsgate Port  expansion  proposals are directly linked to, and timed to  coincide with,  DHBs  plans to undertake the massive and damaging dredging of the Goodwin Sands.  Having a modern state of the art aggregate washing plant conveniently  located at a port  close to Dover would place Brett’s in a very strong position to successfully tender for the lucrative aggregate processing contracts which DHB might be letting during the construction of the expanded port.  Brett, though its joint venture companies Britannia Aggregates and Volker Dredging (2)  already have substantial experience of marine  dredging making  them an even stronger  contender to become DHBs partner of choice to dredge the Goodwin Sands and process the extracted aggregate”.

Its inconceivable that TDC and KCC are unaware  of the link between Brett’s expansion proposals  at the Port of Ramsgate and DHBs plans to dredge 2.5 million cubic metres  from the  Goodwin Sands.  To allow Brett to expand their operations at Ramsgate makes  KCC and TDC complicit in an act of unprecedented environmental and historic vandalism on a massive scale. I publically call upon Ramsgate Port owners Thanet Council and its leader Chris Wells to refuse, in the interest of environmental protection, to give  Brett Aggregate Ltd permission to locate their aggregate washing facility at the Port of Ramsgate