seaborne freight claims its ferries will carry lorries from a port in ramsgate that hasn't been usedn five years. why use a company that's never moved a single truck in their entire history, and give them £14 million? the department for transport insists the company was carefully vetted. also tonight: more migrants arrive in kent as the home secretary cuts short his christmas holiday to deal with the rising number of channel crossings. violence and claims of vote—rigging in bangladesh's general election, as the governing party is returned to power. and bath battle back to beat leicester in rugby union's premiership. good evening. the department for transport has defended its decision to award a contract worth nearly £14 million to a shipping company that's never done any business. as part of the government's preparation for a no—deal brexit, seaborne freight has been contracted to transport goods vehicles between ramsgate and ostend in belgium. a bbc investigation has found that the company, which was formed less than two years old, has no trading record and no significant assets. th

seaborne freight has been contracted to provide ferry services carrying goods vehicles from ramsgatea bbc investigation has established that the company has never run a ferry service and has no significant assets. our business correspondent joe miller reports. these are the large ferries that will carry thousands of lorries across the channel to relieve congestion at dover in the event of a no—deal brexit as soon as march. but while two large international shipping firms have been awarded contracts to provide extra crossings at locations like portsmouth and plymouth, one british business has been handed millions of pounds by the department for transport on the promise of reviving this terminal with a regular route to belgium. ramsgate‘s commercial port has been dormant for the best part of five years. currently, no large ferries depart from here, but the government has given almost £14 million to a firm called seaborne freight, which has never sailed a vessel and has no significant assets to get a regular service up and running injust three months. as of a couple of months ago, the c

seaborne freight has been contracted to provide ferry services carrying goods vehicles from ramsgatestablished that the company has never run a ferry service and has no significant assets. our business correspondent joe miller reports. these are the large ferries that will carry thousands of lorries across the channel to relieve congestion at dover in the event of a no—deal brexit as soon as march. but while two large international shipping firms have been awarded contracts to provide extra crossings at locations like portsmouth and plymouth, one british business has been handed millions of pounds by the department for transport on the promise of reviving this terminal, with a regular route to belgium. ramsgate's commercial port has been dormant for the best part of five years. currently, no large ferries depart from here, but the government has given almost £14 million to a firm called seaborne freight, which has never sailed a vessel and has no significant assets to get a regular service up and running injust three months. as of a couple of months ago, the compa ny‘s total share ca

seaborne freight has been contracted to provide ferries to carry goods vehicles across the channel. tojoe miller in ramsgate — where the company plans to operate its services — and asked him what more we know about the company. this is part of a government process — over the last couple of months, it has been quietly awarding contracts to three shipping companies to provide additionalfreight capacity across the channel, in the event of a no—deal brexit causing congestion at dover and on roads down to the coast. two of those companies are big international firms. one of them was seabourne freight, as you mentioned. it was awarded £14 million to provide emergency ferry freight services from here in ramsgate to belgium. as of a few weeks ago, it was, essentially, only existing on paper, as a company, valued at around £70. and it had certainly never sailed a vessel. the company says it can get up and running in ramsgate in time for brexit day on 29th of march. the department for transport says it has done all the checks that are needed in order to make sure that this company can get up

criticism from many mps, the dft is now clarifying and saying that because it is a start—up, seaborne freightd if it is not operating properly, it will not get a single penny. brittany ferries, it is understood, will retain some of the award, even if its contingency plans are not needed. president putin has visited the scene of an explosion that caused an apartment block to collapse in the russian city of magnitogorsk. rescue workers are still searching the rubble for survivors. at least four people are dead and another a0 are still missing. officials say it was caused by a gas leak. a nasa probe is set to make history in the early hours of tomorrow when it's due to fly past a space rock more than 3.5 billion miles from earth. if successful, it will be the furthest object ever visited by a space craft. the probe, called new horizons, will take a series of photos which may hold clues about the formation of the solar system. 0ur science editor, david shukman, reports. it's taken a long, dark trek through the outer reaches of the solar system. but now, the nasa spacecraft new horizons is on the

seaborne freight claims its ferries will carry lorries from a port in ramsgate that hasn't been usedntire history, and give them £14 million? the department for transport insists the company was carefully vetted. also tonight: more migrants arrive in kent as the home secretary cuts short his christmas holiday to deal with the rising number of channel crossings. violence and claims of vote—rigging in bangladesh's general election, as the governing party is returned to power.

seaborne freight has been contracted to provide ferries to carry goods vehicles across the channel.. just talk us through the background to all of this. over the past couple of months, the department for transport has been quietly awarding contracts transport has been quietly awarding co ntra cts to transport has been quietly awarding contracts to shipping firms to provide additional freight capacity across the channel in the event of a new deal brexit to ease congestion at dover. two of the companies that we re at dover. two of the companies that were awarded our massive international firms and one were awarded our massive internationalfirms and one is were awarded our massive international firms and one is a small british start—up called seabourne freight. it was given £14 million to provide extra capacity from here in ramsgate, but as of a few weeks ago it only really existed on paper and it had never sailed a vessel, and councillors here say there is no way that this port, which hasn't run freight facilities in five years, could be operational in time. the company insists it can