THE firm that runs M&S stores in Jersey says that its prices on the shelves will have to go up next month when DFDS starts to add harbour dues levied by Ports of Jersey on to its bills.
From the middle of this month, the ferry company is starting to pass on a ‘per-unit’ charge which Ports of Jersey levy for using the Harbour.
This is essentially a charge per trailer every time it is loaded and unloaded. The charge varies depending on length; for vehicles and trailers over 10m, it is £21.31.
The dominant player in freight logistics in Jersey, Ferryspeed, has told its customers – including M&S franchise owner in Jersey, Sandpiper CI – that these dues will be passed on from February, as well as an inflationary rise levied by DFDS.
SandpiperCI executive chairman Tony O’Neill said that for his business, the rise equated to several hundreds of thousands of pounds, which would have to be passed on to customers.
“Price rises will be necessary to cover these unbudgeted costs, which will not apply in Guernsey,” he said.
DFDS say that the passing on harbour dues is a ‘one-off correction’ following the operator’s decision to absorb the charge last year, once it had discovered over the summer – after Ports of Jersey had sent it an unexpected invoice – that Condor had been absorbing it.
Mr O’Neill is unhappy with the way DFDS was awarded a 20-year exclusive deal to run ‘Ro-Ro’ and ‘Ro-Pax’ ferry services to and from Jersey. Earlier this year, he launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of driving up costs for Islanders by its choice of ferry operator.
However, the government has launched an equally robust defence, arguing that DFDS’s ‘flat-rate card’ for freight provides transparency and will “shine a light on a very obscure and untransparent part of Jersey’s economy” – namely the freight service industry which is dominated by Ferryspeed.
The government has, however, conceded that prices may go up – which it says is a price worth paying so that DFDS can make the necessary investments in its fleet and services, something it argues that Condor was not doing nor offering in its own tender for the contract.
Defending its own actions, in light of the February price rises that Mr O’Neill said were unavoidable, DFDS said: “In October 2025, DFDS confirmed to freight forwarders that the per-unit port charge would not be applied to customer invoices during 2025.
“This followed the identification of a discrepancy whereby certain port charges had not historically been passed on to customers and where this position was not visible to DFDS during the tender process due to the commercial confidentiality of previous arrangements.
“Once this was identified, DFDS rolled back the charge and has absorbed the full cost to date as part of the start-up phase of its ferry agreement.”
It added: “Freight forwarders and their customers were advised that from mid-January 2026 the charge would be reinstated as a one-off correction, bringing the charging structure back into line with standard industry practice.
“Port dues are statutory charges set by ports and passed through to users; they are not discretionary price increases by DFDS. As the charge is applied on a per-unit basis, the impact will vary depending on individual customer volumes. “
DFDS also addressed another concern of Mr O’Neill – that from this month the Tuesday sailing of the passenger and freight carrier Stena Vinga, which arrives in the evening, would be paused from 13 January until 7 April and then again from 4 October, reducing its frequency from six to five sailings a week.
Mr O’Neill said: “This will result in shortages on shelves for customers and yet again demonstrates the cavalier way in which DFDS seem to be allowed to cancel ferries at will irrespective off the consequences for Islanders.”
In response, DFDS said: “There is no reduction in Jersey’s overnight primary freight service. The Caesarea Trader will continue to operate six freight sailings per week, supported by the Stena Vinga, which will operate five sailings per week during the first quarter of 2026, increasing thereafter.
“The only sailing not operating in Q1 is the Tuesday morning passenger-led departure from Portsmouth, arriving in Jersey late afternoon, reflecting lower off-season demand.
“The schedule meets all concession requirements and provides 11 weekly sailings to Jersey. Freight capacity, including food deliveries, is maintained. Timetables were confirmed and communicated to customers in October 2025.”
Although the now-published 20-year ‘concession agreement’ that the government signed with DFDS is currently being analysed by the Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel, Mr O’Neill added that he would like the Attorney General to review its terms, particularly to identify any difference that the absent per-unit harbour dues might have made to DFDS’s tender bid.
This call, however, has been rejected. The Law Officers’ Department said that such a review was not part of the Attorney General’s remit, which included providing legal advice and representation to the Government.
The LOD was also involved in the drawing up of the concession agreement.
It added that this is something the Attorney General had done this time last year when Brittany Ferries challenged the government’s decision to award the tender to DFDS by applying to bring proceedings for a Judicial Review into the ferry tender process.
The Court of Appeal refused that application, concluding, among other things, that Brittany Ferries had been too slow to present its legal case, especially as it had chosen to engage in the second, Jersey-only, tender process.
The concession agreement is currently being reviewed by the scrutiny panel. The review remains in the ‘evidence gathering’ phase, which is due to conclude mid January.
Panel chair Deputy Montfort Tadier said it was currently too early to make any findings or recommendations, and he encouraged any individual or business to make a submission via scrutiny@gov.je.
Mr O’Neill has already made a submission to the panel.
When it comes to how much harbour dues – or indeed, ferry costs – influence prices on the shelves in Jersey, the government argues that, relatively speaking, it is not a lot.
It has previously said that Jersey-specific costs make up 12% of the price of an item sold in a supermarket. Its economic advisers have worked out that 7% of that 12% is down to distribution, and of that 7%, 35% can be attributed to the ferry service and 5% is port dues, while the majority, 60%, is down to freight and delivery charges.
Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel has therefore argued that port dues make up a small part of the value of an item; a far larger percentage is down the cost of the freight operator, which Deputy Morel has said needs to be a more transparent market.
He has said that he hopes importers will be able to “hold their freight services provider to account” knowing that the DFDS charges are clear and published for all to see.
The government argues that Condor’s previous volume-based rate card – which offered discounts to larger freight carriers – not only squeezed out smaller players but was not sustainable.
Deputy Morel has argued that Condor was in no fit state to carry on before Brittany Ferries took a majority stake in the operator in September 2024.
In that year, Jersey and Guernsey taxpayers spent millions of pounds – £4.5m in Jersey alone – paying DFDS to have ferries on standby, ready to ship food and freight to the islands at a moment’s notice.
This was because Condor appeared to be on its last sea legs. Indeed, the indebted Port of Poole had successfully applied to the UK’s Admiralty Court in November 2023, giving it powers to seize Condor’s vessels for non-payment of dues.
Condor also approached Jersey for financial support in 2024, including guarantees worth 120m euros. These requests were refused.
However, the States of Guernsey, with experience of owning its own airline since 2003, used emergency legislation in March 2023 to loan Condor £26m and invest a further £3m to buy the Straitsman from a New Zealand operator, which became the Islander.
The island’s Civil Contingency Authority decided to effectively buy a boat for Guernsey as ‘a means to avert a potential emergency’.
Jersey’s ministers, on the other hand, clearly did not have the same appetite when it came to owning transport assets, a point reinforced recently when they chose not to bail out Blue Islands, despite knowing that past loans would be a risk if the airline collapsed, which it subsequently did.
In a statement to the JEP, the Government said: “The current ferry contract offers Islanders a dependable, more sustainable service with a transparent and predictable pricing structure for freight operators. It has increased our supply-chain resilience, and we now have a service that promises significant long-term investment.
“Freight charges applied by DFDS are one small component of overall retail prices at the supermarket till. Retailers base their prices on a wide range of costs.”
When it comes to potential price rises next month, the JEP has contacted other supermarkets for comment.
