Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones has joined Joe Robertson MP’s calls for a future Mayor to have powers over cross-Solent transport.
As part of the Local Government restructuring, the proposed Mayor of the Hampshire and Solent Combined Authority would have oversight of public transport, including by road, rail and bus – but not ferries under current plans.
Donna Jones, who will also be the Conservative candidate for the Mayoral elections expected next May, says that must change.
Commissioner Jones has this week spoken at the Select Committee Evidence Hearing for the English Devolution Bill, where she called for ferries to be included within Mayoral powers. She raised the unique geography of the combined area and how the Solent caused problems for Isle of Wight residents, supply chains and service provision.
She told the cross-party committee of MPs:
“It is cost prohibitive for a lot of people who want to travel off the island who live there. I will be asking a right to request for the right to have a regulator power over those ferry companies who are going to be operating, or do operate, across the Solent.”
Mr Robertson has already asked the new Maritime Minister, Keir Mather MP, to intervene and ensure that the Mayor has regulatory powers over cross-Solent transport. He said that the Isle of Wight is the only place in the UK reliant on unregulated private companies for essential travel services.
The Isle of Wight East MP has said:
“As ever, the Isle of Wight is being sidelined. The Government is creating a new Mayor for Hampshire and Isle of Wight with transport powers for road, rail and buses but not ferries. The Government say that they take the issue of ferries seriously, yet do not even refer to them in the consultation document on our local transport.
“I am pleased that Donna Jones and I have a shared view on this. The ferry companies should not be given special treatment. When Isle of Wight Councillors vote on 1st October, they should reject the deal and send it back to Government to put ferry powers in it. This is the time for us to all pull together in the interest of the Island, stand up to the ferry companies and send a clear message to Government.”
A vote by Isle of Wight Councillors on whether to agree to the Government’s combined mayor proposal is due to be taken on 1st October.
JUST A MINUTE, here, we are in the Isle of Wight, NOT the “Solent”
It will be the Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Unitary Authority, and even then apparently Southampton and Portsmouth are included, so it will combine 4 existing authorities, All with names, not a stretch of water.
Doesn’t bode well for the future, we won’t even have a post code.
And, unless a buy out of the ferry companies takes place, there will be no way any control of them can be made.
Surely now that both Ferry Companies are struggling,
now is the best time for the Government to buy them out.
Get a good price, compulsory purchase sounds good to me.
The biggest problem the Island faces at the moment is transport links to the mainland. If a new Mayor can do nothing about this issue there is very little point in having one!
That ain’t necessarily so.
Take the big smoke for example.
Roll out congestion and ulez charges plus residential
parking charges islandwide.
The money generated could be used to buy the ferry
companies and then charge a flat rate to Islanders,
obviously persons visiting the island pay slightly
more.
Lol
Did i see red funnel in trouble? needs a buyer?
Along with wightlink.
The government has nodded and voiced platitudes, but has no interest in regulating Solent ferries.
Our best hope is, as stated by Mr Robertson and Ms Jones, to include ferries within the transport powers of the new Mayoralty. The danger I foresee is the other Hampshire and Solent authorities seeing that as a drain on the allocated transport funding, as I cannot see the government raising the amount of transport grant.
Interesting times.
Good time to build a tunnel…
Talk’s cheap but will they end up in the ferry company’s pocket
Since the root of the problem lies with Tories selling off the family silver( Wightlink), or just enabling greedy, money-grabbing privateers (Red Funnel and Wightlink), I don’t hold out much hope for any meaningful regulation by any Tory mayor.
Is there a legal framework that could deliver this?
Never hear a thing from West Wight MP. He is a wasted space