Island Echo always welcome letters to the editor, which may of course not reflect the views of the publication and its staff.
Letter to the editor – 7th November 2021
Thank you Bob Seely and Lord Anthony Berkeley for recent representations to Parliament and The Lords, relating to the unfair way this Island’s link to the mainland is managed.
This should be regarded as part of the national transport network and a levelling up with Scotland should be enacted.
Services to Anglesey
Population: 70,000
Size: 250 square miles (280 per sqm)
Transport: 1 road bridge, 1 rail bridge
Services to the Isle of Skye
Population: 10,000
Size: 639 square miles (15.6 per sqm)
Transport: 1 road bridge and 1 ferry (45 minutes, approx. £46 return)
Services to the Isle of Wight
Population: 141,000
Size: 148 square miles (952 per sqm)
Transport: 3 private vehicle ferries (40 to 50 minutes)
Fishbourne-Portsmouth – £120.00
Yarmouth-Lymington – £148.00
East Cowes-Southampton – £140.00
Each example reflected a booking out on the 24th November and back on the 29th. So we pay £100.00 more than Scotland for 4 in a car.
This is why we cannot get the best talent to move to the Isle of Wight
Mr J Curtis
Newport
Let us know if you get a reply…
What this person seems to forget is the ferry passes etc can get. My multilink means I can get that ferry for under £50 for those days.
Maybe some research into what residents of those islands mentioned gets as a comparison.
I have used the Sky ferry and it is a lot more difficult than Wightlink. Return car £20.60, per passehger £6.00. Wightlink Multilink 58.00 – £46.00 return up to four passengers, CalMac still beats us.
Yeah only works if they let you on, try your multipass on a festival weekend or any other time the ferry is fully booked and get turned away.
Not everyone wants a multi book of tickets either. Some people just want a fair price
And what is fair for an islander to pay? And what for a mainlander? How much would be enough to cover all the costs of running the ferries and pay for new ones without government subsidies?
Maybe some investigation needs to be done on that. Consider a new ferry costs £35-40 million. Want a regular service so 3 ferries.
Each may last 20-30 years….maybe. 105 million etc.
Realistically a company would need to make at least £5-10 million profit a year to buy new ships eventually and upgrade terminals etc.
Someone please feel free to go and do some math.
A “fair” price you are asking for would only be possible with government subsidies like all the other ferries mentioned in Scotland. And that isnt going to happen as the island is very different than all those islands due to the very high tourist interest.
Most of us Islanders don’t want multilink passes just good honest prices.
The multilink ticket is only useful for people who travel often enough to the mainland to warrant the cost of the book. At the end of the year any tickets that are left over can be transferred to yet another book, but might pile up to a bunch of tickets that won’t be used (or frivolously used for trips that you didn’t really want to do in the first place). I do agree with some of the other commentators here who wish for fair prices for Islanders instead.
You forgot to mention how much you have to pay up front to get below 50.00 return, mine is 250.00+, giving me a fare of about 56.00. A good rate if you do ten trips a year.
Maybe you can IF the ferry is running….
We have sufficient population here already Mr.Curtis… We’re bursting at the seams which is bad for the environment, bad for (the tourist) industry and bad for Islanders. Surprisingly perhaps, high ferry fares are a blessing in disguise. We just need a reliable service.
Maybe for you ya rich so and so. A lot of islanders who are actually born here aren’t as well off. Maybe thats to do with the artificially low wages here caused by the massive ferry prices.
Hey, don’t knock it. This lack of “best talent” keeps me in a job.
(For the literal minded, this is a joke – but with a point)
The Island has many exceptionaly talented people, which is why so much inivation and development has been done here. We need top medical people as well as new engineers, It does not help to know that everytime you want to visit the North island, you have to add two hours and £130. plus, if you go for a week. That would see me north of London with two tanks of petrol.
Never going to happen. Our taxes are just to allow the other 3 nations to have free healthcare and cheaper ferries etc.
Boris talks of levelling up?
So you won’t mind an increase in income tax then to pay for this? (Most, not all) Scottish ferries are subsidised yet Scotland has the highest income tax rates in the UK. Give with one hand, take with the other.
77 and still paying Tax, I first came to the Island in the 50s, one ticket from London Waterloo, linked to the paddle steamer and the steam train to take us to Sandown. I married in 1965 and we travelled to Ventnor by train for our honeymoon. I moved to the Island in 1967 and have travelled all over England, Wales and Scotland from here. the crippling bit is always just getting off the Island.
Very very informative, let’s hope we entice a fighter to stand for our next local MP representative who will put the residents of IoW before anything else. Should Mr Curtis start a petition I am sure everyone on the Island would support it and then perhaps the Government will level us up with other Islands who rely on ferry services to go back and forth to mainland. Even if we managed a much reduced rate for Island Residents only that would be an improvement to the costs charged currently.
Hopefully the author will send this letter to where it might actually do some good, namely, Boris
It has been sent o Bob Seely
well that’s a waste of time, he’s saying all the right things but won’t see them through because of his links to a ferry firm. Redevelopment of East Cowes he supports, see how much more land RF get whilst it’s happening.
You must be joking.
Let’s face it , not many people on this island earn great wages so paying these ferry prices just can’t happen .
Hard working people need every penny to make ends meet and to keep their heads above water.
Everything keeps getting price hikes except wages .
It’s support that’s need here not handouts , decent island residents prices would be a start just to let some islanders actually get off the island for a day .
The way things are heading all people will be able to do is work go home work again then go home as there is no spare money to do anything else .
It’s getting a sad state of affairs for life
Very well said. I feel so trapped sometimes and I simply can’t afford the fares.
Levelling up doesn’t solve the problem of a duopoly (or two monopolies if you want to look it at that way). We need the best ferry operators available offering the best prices. That can only happen if the car ferry routes are tendered so there are adequate competitive levers and protection for consumers.
I have read all the above correspondence mainly about travel costs to and from the ISLAND.I empathise with most of what has been said (given that I am an outsider from the mainland). However, there are three routes and two methods and three travel operators.and it seems to me that the cost complaint is really against WightLink, who I believe accommodate the bulk of the Island travellers and visitors. Certainly. I support fares for Island residents which are less than tourist fares, but again tourist fares also have to encourage tourism otherwise residents will still suffer.
More positively, I shall continue to visit “paradise” 3 times p.a.
STOP the competition, set one price for each trip.. anytime of year. The ferry companies are money grabbing….
This needs to be very carefully investigated, and not some knee-jerk reactive ‘solution’.
Both ferry companies use ‘yield management’ to set fares, I.e., the greater the demand, the higher the fare. This is why needs investigating. Why do Wightlink (I don’t know bout Red Funnel) increase the passenger fare on the Fastcat during Festival week? Pure profiteering, nothing else!
a set set of tariffs needs to be drawn up, and yes, probably some form of Islander discount (what is it about Islanders asking for discounts everywhere?), then, perhaps things might seem fare (sorry about the pun).
That’s pretty standard in business. It’s called supply and demand. How else are they supposed to cover the costs of operating the empty boats in the early mornings and late nights? These companies are not charities, and need to make money to survive. Surely it’s better to have an expensive service than no service at all?
Anglesey has 2 road bridges, unless one had fallen down that I am unaware of 🙂
Portsmouth is also an Island, joined by bridges etc…
you do realise that the commuter boats from ryde have hardly anyone on them – eg -5.47 in the morning had less than 40 people on it, when i used it last week. Most of these are regular commuters with annual season tickets. Those annual tickets cost about £1800, which is about £3.50 a trip, when used five days a week, 52 weeks a year.
that amounts to about £140.00 of revenue from those 5.47 boat customers, per day – doesn’t come close to running costs.
Those commuter boat costs are paid for by the busier, higher ticket priced services, after 9 am and by tourist prices in the summer. There wont be ticket price cuts.