This city was built around the dominance of the port and its maritime industries, so to have no industry left is appalling.

UKIP Southampton wants to reverse this.

Our flagship policy is called ‘Southampton Revival’ and centres around bringing back industry.

We will start this by seeking to return ship repair by reinstating the mighty King George V dry dock in Millbrook.

Today the dock is unrecognisable. Mountains of scrap metal, woodchip and aggregate have replaced working cranes.

It is a depressing sight to see such an important asset reduced to a filthy dumping quay.

It may benefit ABP and a handful of businesses but it does nothing for the city or the thousands of ships that use the port every year.

And that is the big difference. In its heyday, ship repair in Southampton employed over 1,000 people, gave them a good life and serviced the world’s ships.

The Port of Southampton is one of the premier cargo and passenger ports in the country with around 6,000 ships visiting a year.

With a working dry dock, the damaged Hoegh Osaka could have been repaired here.

Cruise, container and cargo ships could be maintained and refitted here too.

But instead, we are we happy to let it rot and go unused for the purpose it was designed for.

Having such a massive port being incapable of repairing the ships that use it does not make business sense in the 21st century.

By returning ship repair, we will be able to compete with many European shipyards again and we will create real employment with real apprenticeships.

People will say UKIP wants to return Southampton to the 1950s.

Of course we don’t – we simply want to reinstate something we should never have lost in the first place.