Fixed Link Campaigner Carl Feeney has confirmed he is to stand in next month’s General Election as part of the national ‘Independent Network’.
Mr Feeney spent Thursday and Friday last week at the IN Westminster offices discussing political party support and endorsement.
Following this meeting, Carl has announced that he is officially in contention to become the Island’s next MP. Islanders will go to the polls on 12th December.
Island-born Feeney explains:
“I felt it irresponsible to stand as MP without first making sufficient preparations for support at Westminster should I succeed. There are now over 2700 Independent councillors, 25 Independent MEP’s, many Independent MP’s and four more standing within the IN this election”
Mr Feeney says his 4 main policies are:
1 – The implementation of a fixed link… more specifically, the Solent Freedom Tunnel
2 – To leave the EU as soon as possible
3 – An island manifesto and agenda, formed by island constituents… transparently
4 – Able to garner support from all political parties
If he want the Island turned into a concrete jungle perhaps he should move to London, or some other city.
Our Island is beautiful, let’s keep it that way, our roads can’t cope now.
exactly clare
He seems to forget that no county on the mainland wants an entrance/exit ramp to the island located in their backyard. It will just attract vast numbers of cars, lorries, people, pollution, crime and other undesirables, for no economic benefit to them.
Then there is the monumental environmental impact to the green lands, natural habitats and ecosystem around any hideously expensive and unwanted tunnel.
Feeney can go and live on the mainland.
Both Southampton and Portsmouth are looking at possible entrance and exits for a Tunnel,as it would free up city traffic especially during rush hours and Ferry times,surely that would make an impact environmentally?.
@mike –
you haven’t though that through have you- driving miles out of town to an entrance, then driving through a tunnel, then driving back into Ryde would be far more polluting with that many cars engines running continuously, instead of being switched off during a ferry crossing, with just the boat creating emissions.
what about foot passengers – how much pollution getting to and from an entrance, when the trains already arrive at Portsmouth harbour and they walk to the fastcat.
not a hope in hell of a fixed link anytime soon and most certainly no chance, within a decade or more.
Is our Island not turning into a concrete jungle now,especially with a reported 10,000 extra homes being built,and our roads can’t cope?as many coming over here will be going on the mainland,don’t put a negative on every thing
So why do you think people are going to rush over to the island? As you say the roads are unable to cope. Plus most are not fit for purpose, try joining the real world.
I think Carl should be campaigning for a “Solent Crossing” referendum for Islanders on whether they want :
A) What they have now. Expensive, unreliable, unregulated ferry transport.
B) A properly accountable and regulated ferry service (fines for poor performance etc) with significant subsidies for Islanders, especially students, OAP’s, people on benefits and FREE for people going to mainland for medical appointments.
C) A fixed link of some sort, Tunnel or Bridge with tolls giving subsidies for Islanders.
D) A fixed link whereby it’s FREE to leave, (no charge). But there is toll to get on the island. Bit like Wales used to have on the Severn bridge.
E) Something else?
@Nick
the ferries are heavily regulated and have regular inspections and audits by the mca.
you cannot fine someone for poor performance, when a significant amount of the performance is weather dependent and beyond the control of the operator.
who will pay for these subsidies – why should OAP’s and benefit spongers get cheaper travel than hard working taxpayers – that is discrimination. Why should others be expected to pay higher ticket prices, just so others can travel for free.
fixed link – it is infrastructure funds that finance these types of schemes – it is infrastructure funds that own wightlink and red funnel – they aren’t going to support the destruction of their own business interests.
something else – the status quo will be fine.
“the ferries are heavily regulated and have regular inspections and audits by the mca.” .
but despite that, it’s surprising how many of the delays are the result of ‘incidents’ involving the supposedly “regulated and regularly inspected” aspects of their operation…:
Anchors falling off,
Link Span issues,
movable ramps on ferries getting stuck,
propulsion systems failing..
and so on
@none given : The ferry owned Infrastructure/pension funds could bid to design, build and operate a fixed link and therefore transition from ferry operator to road management. Your arguments are very blinkered, the Island needs to work for everyone, rich, poor, young, old etc …
And the regulation I am referring to is one of business performance / customer experience not MCA inspections to ensure sea worthiness. Didn’t Red Funnel lose an anchor last month, despite regular inspections?
@Nick – have you analysed the infrastructure funds that own the ferry companies?
that is not how they operate.
@Nick
my arguments are factual and accurate. The island does work for everyone – all the ferry companies accept all islanders, rich, poor, young, old etc.
4 – Able to garner support from all political parties
ha ha ha ha – political parties struggle to agree on who sits where in debating rooms, as they feel there is a pecking order.
Parties have been known to cancel meetings because the shape of the table, favours certain seats over others and as such some party members may feel as they they are not being treated equally.
Parliament is corrupt and councils are corrupt, sadly it’s always been that way and there’s no such thing as true democracy in this country.
He’ll never get elected. He’s wasting his time.
Well done Carl. It’s a long time since we had an MP who really looked out for the future of the Island. Our young people deserve to have a positive prosperous future. The alternative is the island becoming an even bigger retirement home!
Would you not like your mother or father to spend there twilight years in nice surroundings?
Or do you prefer the elderly living in a crime infested concrete hell hole..
I know I’ll get a lot of negative votes for saying this, mainly due to the demographic of the Island, but…
Whilst I agree with you in the most part Dawn,… if he had any concern for the prosperous future of our young people, he would be against Brexit,.. not for it!
It’s called Democracy a word that far too many people don’t like in this country…
@Dawn – he would be no good for the islanders at all – he has a single issue focus – that being his precious tunnel that he has been banging on about for years and years.
feeney started begging for cash to fund yet another viability study, which he says will cost £130k back in 2015 or thereabouts.
Four years later, they have raised £30,500 – they are £99,500 short. They did state that it had to be raised by january 2019, however, that clearly didn’t happen and feeney made excuse after excuse.. these are the ones from the website…
Certain anti fixed link individuals have attempted to sabotage the study fundraising on social media.
Potential contributors have complained that just prior to Christmas is an inappropriate time to ask for funding contributions.
Many Island businesses have conveyed that Brexit uncertainty has prevented them from contributing to date.
Pathetic – in four years they have raised nowhere near enough – hardly a ringing endorsement of his plans is it, when the
island has over 120,000 people on it.
feeney is flogging a dead horse and just won’t accept it. Feeney has removed the jan 2019 deadline and states fund raising will continue indefinitely until the full amount is raised – well based on £31k over four years, he should get the rest in about another ten years then.
although he does say….Without this study, the campaign can not continue… it will be highly doubtful a fixed link will occur at all in the future.
He got that last bit right.
hidden away at the bottom of feeneys tunnel site….
The IOW Council leader – Dave Stewart and Cabinet member for transport – Ian Ward, have agreed that the study conclusions will be presented to the DfT by ARUP, PRO-LINK and the IOW Council, in order to request further advanced studies regarding feasibility and planning implementation. Should the fixed link case is proven, the more intensive studies will be requested to be funded by central government.
….
so, they beg money off people to carry out a study, which they will ensure suits their objective (lets face it, they aren’t going to say no are they), then they start campaigning for more money to do more studies – all the while feeney and co. will no doubt be part of any future, post arup studies and will be looking to draw a salary from any funds raised.
like I said earlier, no fixed link anytime soon – not in the next decade and some.
This seems to be about milking as much money as possible from anywhere, especially government, so that salaries and lifestyles can be created for as long as possible, whilst they talk about studies, talk about plans, create pretty websites, have meetings, lunches, drinks, travel on fact finding missions to exotic locations, that have a tunnel somewhere (holidays) and all the while, not one spade will hit dirt anytime soon, anywhere – then it will be shelved once they have milked it to death.
feeney as an MP – no, I don’t think so – he appears to be just simply looking for a free ticket to a publicly funded, sit down, chit chat, get others to do work, lifestyle.
he doesn’t seem to have the islanders best interests at heart – just his own. In my opinion feeney wants to become an MP, to get onto transport and infrastructure committees and then try to force his tunnel plan onto others, all the while ignoring everything else and claiming fees for attending committee meetings. This looks like a lifestyle choice for him and his tunnel obsession, he couldn’t care less about the islanders.
if he really cared about the island, then he would not be peddling this endless tunnel obsession.
He will need around 3,700 votes or his deposit will be toast. Pure fantasy and ego.
Just an opinion but if someone thought a fixed link was financially viable then they’d just get on and organise it themselves. Why would they want to deal through Mr Feeny, they’d have their own team to deal with their business wouldn’t they?
Got my vote