After many months of work in the background, including a change to UK legislation in the Public Bodies Act 2011 which allows the Secretary of State for Transport to make an order requiring the Dover Harbour Board to wind itself up and transfer all of its functions, assets and liabilities to a new organisation defined in the order, DPPT is ready to accept the mass membership for which it was constituted.
During the first week of March 2012 letters and application forms will be sent out to every address within the Dover District inviting eligible persons and businesses to become members of the Trust by buying a Membership share for £10. The application forms and letters will be arriving as a bulk post from Royal Mail, please look out for them and do not file with the junk mail. Membership application forms will also be available to download from the membership page of this website as will a full copy of the Society's rules and constitution.
We have established a community trust - the Dover People's Port Trust Limited ("People's Port Trust"). Anyone can donate to help our cause and everyone will be welcome to invest in our project. Anyone living in the Dover District will be able to become a member and have a stake in the future of our community. The photo is the community bid being delivered to the Prime Minister at No 10 Downing Street. A summary of what we hope to achieve can be found 
We believe the gateway to the nation should not be sold off overseas. We want to see investment that is needed to make the best of the port for everyone living in Dover and for the UK as a whole. Our vision is to create a new partnership between the town, port and ferry companies - a partnership that will make Dover a really amazing place for travel, to visit and enjoy.
The Peoples Port would show what a great difference the Big Society could make. The port is worth hundreds of millions of pounds. This is a project that is all about us getting together to fight poverty and deprivation.
Why weren't communities surrounding Dover allowed to vote?
- John
John, This was a Parish poll called by the residents of Dover Town. Under the existing Local Government Act, only councils with parish powers can call such a poll, this means that it is not possible to call a district wide poll. The procedure to call such a poll is that residents must collect sufficient signatures on a petition to call a parish meeting with a specific purpose in mind and present the petition to their parish clerk. The parish council must then convene a parish meeting to discuss the issue and to pass a motion. The motion is passed at the Parish meeting by attracting votes in favour of the motion by 10 parish residents or one third of those present, whichever is smaller. Dover Town has so far been the only council with parish powers in the district which has undergone this process and so is the only one that has had a poll and only residents of the parish which has called such a poll may vote in it. Should residents in other parishes wish to conduct a parish poll in their own parishes, then they will need to go through the same process as Dover Town did.
- Neil Wiggins