With the terrible state of Island travel on everybody’s mind at the moment, we look at what exactly is going wrong…
By far the most problematic issue has been on Island Line, where the service has been plagued with issues for several weeks now. Flooding, sickness and a lack of signalling staff are among the regular excuses. Morning evening and even after-school trains have been affected, leaving those who rely on the service forced to make alternative travel plans.
What makes it more troubling is the large price it cost to improve the line back in 2021 when some £26million was spent, but with works ongoing at Ryde Pier Head and staffing issues continuing what exactly did that money achieve?
But it’s not just the trains that are having issues. Across the tracks at Ryde, things haven’t been plain sailing for other methods of Island travel…
Whilst the main reason for Hovertravel cancellations recently has been due to the adverse weather, there has been a glut of technical issues that have affected the service too.
Many can accept that the high winds and torrential rain will cause a halt to service, but the thing that leaves Islanders disgruntled is that there is never any explanation as to what the technical issues are, leaving many wondering why a more permanent fix isn’t made.
Subsequently, commuters heading to and from the mainland have been severely affected with 1 of them telling Island Echo he’s been forced to live in his shop in Southsea due to the unreliable service.
In the past 3 weeks, Island Echo can confirm there have been no fewer than 11 incidents that have caused Hovertravel to suspend service.
As for the other passenger service departing from Ryde, things haven’t been any better for Wightlink. Their FastCat encountered technical issues after it struck debris in the water on Monday evening.
As a result, there was no FastCat service at all on Tuesday and if it wasn’t bad enough, weather issues meant that Hovertravel couldn’t run either – so anyone wanting to get to the mainland had to use the Fishbourne car ferry.
Wightlink’s misery was compounded when the problem couldn’t be fixed, with the usual 2nd vessel docked up and awaiting annual maintenance. In its place, a charter vessel has been in service since Wednesday, but a much slower crossing time and smaller passenger capacity has left the public feeling dismayed.
The Wight Ryder has since returned to action.
All these issues though have been overshadowed by the current petition to reinstate later Fast Cat crossings, which currently stop at around 20:00 – something Wightlink says is going to happen, but not at the moment.
There have been problems on Wightlink’s Yarmouth-Lymington car ferry service too. The lack of a single crew member has affected numerous crossings on the route in the last few weeks.
As for Red Funnel, they too have had issues in the staffing department in the not-so-recent past, but at this time it looks as if they have got a grip on the situation with service cancellations kept to a minimum in recent weeks.
What are your thoughts on cross-Solent and Island Line travel? Comment below…
Certainly the Hover service has been poor. Perhaps the brand group should wake up and recognise that chapman should go?
I wont be the first to say it, build a damn bridge! And if people dont like it, they wont have to wait for a ferry to leave!!
The ferry companies are never going to change and, because they are fully independent private enterprises, there is nothing anyone can do to make them change.
People who don’t want a fixed link need to stop whining about the ferries and accept that they are what they are (private enterprises that exist solely to make money for their shareholders).
I’ve always wonderd why the island council hasn’t bought a controlling interest over the years, instead of industrial units oop north.
Then we the island people would have some say in our transport links.
No, too much of a good idea.
Not enough backwards thinking, so wont do that.
BuT We WoUlDnT hAvE InTeRnEt WiThOuT cApOtLiSm
Red funnel and Wightlink both started their winter time tables early. Wightlinks website has a banner saying, ‘book for 2023 at 2022 prices’ so in other words prices will be going up again. All we’ll get is the same piss poor service and excuses as we get now.
How about a tunnel? Oh no we would get scumbags coming over.and drug dealers ! But there already here!!?
Badger, yet MORE would come, as would more beat-nicks and more drug dealing colours too.
You would soon be praying to have the amount of low life we now have been littered up with compared, but of course, that can only be seen by the blinkered ‘when’ it is too late.
THINK
Thanks IE for highlighting this appawling sham of pitifuly unreliable iow travel services. Nice one!
The stick in mud farts can surely see we now need a bridge option…like other islands have!. Noone can make plans…unless you enjoy being stranded or miss important events.
Does our supermarkets shut or petrol stations through 1 staff member off?obv thats bs
ITS BECAUSE THESE GREEDY COMPANIES ARE TRYING TOO SAVE MONEY AT OUR EXPENSIVE
Pity we all cant boycott too teach them a lesson for lying
My thoughts are, like many issues is a lot to do with lawyers.
Now, firms are so afraid of being sued for not having every health and safety issue up to date, which includes having an amount of fully trained staff member in diverse unlikely situations, that it only take one of these trumped up, ‘key role’ workers to be ill, and the whole thing grind to a halt.
Health and safety has gone crazy and it is very costly but firms can’t get insurance without meeting the ott rules.
Today I hear water butts are being removed which gardeners had used for years to water plants via watering cans, due to the ‘risk’ of Legionnaires disease from council owned land such as allotments etc.
The lawyers and public greed of suing are to blame.
And the fact that the health and safety nannies are usually jumped up jobsworths, that have swapped a personality for a hi viz coat.
Something that has worked perfectly fine for years, is now suddenly a “risk” and you cannot do it, unless there are two of you or that you are all wrapped up in cotton wool first. Why is this – in case a woke employee trips over a broken blade of grass and tries to sue the company.
It will never happen!
Don’t get me wrong. as a proud overner(had family living here for the past 50 years)
It will never happen.
Wightlink and red funnel has Monopolise the travel on the island and there’s nothing you can do about.
We would love a bridge but wightlink, red funnel and bob half sausage have destroyed that idea.
what iv heard on the comments on here.
“this is a local island for local people.
There’s nothing for you here!! Enjoy!
Hello Bridge / Tunnel
Goodbye Paul.
Communist! You’d destroy these private companies that are just doing there job!
Its all an absolute joke. fair enough adverse weather is an act of God and always will be .
I think people are tired of the bulshite that the above companies consistently spool out to the media and their customer’s.
Profits come before service and they all make money when there is demand.
When demand is lower the services condense and that’s business sense for any company . They use the term “life line”, but that’s no good for health appointments that are missed costing the NHS hundreds and thousands . Who wants to buy a £4.20 stale sandwich anyway. Bridge or tunnel ?, That’s the charm of an island gone. A reliable all weather public non profit ferry that runs regularly , makes profit in the summer to subsidize the winter is all that’s al
Because nobody is stepping up to the problem and doing something about it we are just expected to accept the service. The government should be stepping in we are technically at times trapped on an island
Dingys seem to be a viable alternative reliable method of arriving on the mainland coast to many. Perhaps those who complain ought to invest in a few, I am sure they must be sold off cheap as only used unfortunately for ‘one way’ traffic.
Sadly you won’t be showered with clothing, NHS dentistry and health checks, nor given a free home and free counicl tax on arrival.
Nor will the locals be fawning over your hoards of clones, feeling ‘richer’ that they can help someone poorer in more needy than themselves, UNTIL they see the cost is ongoing and not just financially as longer NHS queues and more land built over. But people are sadly thick and only see an inch in front
Yeah, that is exactly what you are expected to do. All three ferry companies are fully private enterprises. None of them are subject to public service level agreement as part of an operators licence. None of them are paid subsidies to run unprofitable services.
Bottom line is they can do whatever that like. If all three decided to suspend all crossing for a week, they can, and there is not a damn thing you, me, or anyone else can do about it.
The only solution is a publicly funded 4th option. This has been tried for foot passengers a number of times (failed each time) but never for a car ferry (because there is nowhere for a terminal to be built).
Ben says…The government should be stepping in we are technically at times trapped on an island
no you are not, this isn’t robinson crusoe – you have the option of moving to the mainland if you don’t like the drawbacks to living on an island.
For many households wishing to leave, the prohibitive costs of the ferries are just what’s keeping them here.
When you have a broken political system run by rich elites you will have a broken Britain. What is going on with our services is a direct result. It becoming clear to me the only way to begin to build a better future we need to violently remove the past. Time to build some gallows. We can start with any member of the World Economic Forum. Google it. They want to make it so you never own anything. This is not a conspiracy, I wish it was, it’s real. Seriously google them. Most of our government are members.
Not being an engineer I can only guess at the costs and the difficulty in arranging a bridge or a tuneel, tunnel less liable to have weather restrictions and less stressful on the eye looking across from the mainland or the islnad, either way they are money makers. Either would provide a modern relaible way of getting to and from the island,
Is it a good time to mention the Chain Ferry?
My sister missed a medical appointment at chandlers Ford on Tuesday as the fastcat we planned to get was broken the car ferry was running late so we had to cancel this appointment that she had waited nearly 8 months for now back at bottom of list and more waiting the service is just not good enough many more people missing appointments
no david, your sister did not leave early enough to allow for any delays or setbacks and clearly didn’t plan it either
just like others, leave it to the last minute and then blame everyone else
You clearly don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. If you’d actually been at any of the terminals either at Ryde or Fishbourne on Tuesday, you would have seen the chaos that ensured. Neither Wightlink or Hovertravel were giving clear instruction, with staff then at fishborne port telling foot passengers that the cats were in fact running (they were not).
I hope this person is able to get a new appointment soon, and maybe for you ‘isleofwighter’ to get a bit of compassion. Surely there must be a procedure to resolve webbed toes and backwards views nowerdays?
A fatuous reply , just becuase you live on an island you should not be considered a second class citizen in terms of travel, is it too much to expect when the boat, fast cat, or hover says we are leaving at X then they leave at that time, excuses on unexplained maintence issues, staffing and weather just make the arguement for a bridge or tunnel.
Can’t have a tunnel due to the sea bed instability, chalk etc…Can’t have a bridge due to the solent being one of the busiest shopping lanes in the world and again the instability of the sea bed. An island geologist told me this so we’re wasting our breath moaning. To be honest we’re between a rock and a hard place, pardon the pun. The monopolies have us all by the short and curlies.
As an islander born and bred, I have always been against bridge/tunnel BUT after all this crap with faults, sickness (never seen sickness as an excuse before covid) weather, I’m certain we never had soooo many problems with the older heavier ferries in bad weather. So if it came to a vote now I would vote tunnel because they would only shut the bridge in bad weather.
And no mention of the roads?!? All drivers here need a retest, that’s if they even had one in the first place! Youths these days are destroying our island with there bad driving!
Would love to know your figures of the youths destroying ‘our’ island? It’s as if your suggesting that the 90 year olds behind a wheel arent causing any issues ?