From the Island Echo, yesterday:
Last week we reported on how visitor numbers at some of the Island’s top attractions have failed to bounce back after the COVID pandemic, with the likes of Osborne House seeing a 23% fall in visitor numbers between 2019 and 2023. As I wrote the story I couldn’t help but feel that this is just the tip of the iceberg, with more commercial entities keeping their cards very close to their chests.
It seems every time we are hit with another attraction or hotel closing (we’ve just lost Jack Up), or increased costs to day-to-day living, Island Echo readers point the finger at the ferries – and I can’t disagree. The ferry frims have got a firm grip and it feels as though they are squeezing tighter and tighter every year.
Over on X – formerly Twitter – we were recently alerted to an Islander’s shock when looking to book a ferry. As they took to the Red Funnel website to book a break away in August, they were met with a whopping £369 fare for a 7-day return – and tweeted us to say “Red Funnel you should be ashamed at the damage you are doing to us and tourism on the Isle of Wight”. Damning.
How have we ended up with that sort of cost, when not all that long ago you could pick up a day return (which is still 1 outbound trip, 1 inbound trip don’t forget) for a little over £30? Even for those with money, that is a disgustingly high price.
Pricing isn’t the only issue… we’ve seen a massive increase in instances of poor reliability and staff shortages. Wightlink is reliant on 1 ferry that is almost 35 years old to maintain a full Summer timetable, and Red Funnel has 3 ferries that desperately need replacing – but that won’t happen for at least another 4 years. It’s all well and good having snazzy terminals, but if the boats can’t or won’t run then the whole operation falls apart.
See that £369 fare? That’s a consequence of a privatised service, responsible first to shareholders, which bumps prices in the summer, because it can.
Portsmouth to Isle of Wight crossings take 45 minutes, comparable to the Brodick or Troon to Arran crossing for which CalMac, for a car with 5 passengers, 7 day return, would be around £56 each way, £112 return, less than a third of the Isle of Wight charge and for a far more appealing island!
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
It’s only a matter of time before the English commandeer some ouf our ferries to enhance their own performance whilst traducing our services to British mediocrity.
It would be a fitting example of this pestilant union in action.
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Ferries are slipping down the BBC Scotland Agenda. The new bete noir is ‘early release of VIOLENT prisoners’.
Despite the fact that the situation in prisons in England has become so dire that even the Tories had decided that early release was necessary to prevent large scale rioting in prisons and that Labour has indicated it will be continuing with that policy, as far as BBC Scotland is concerned early release is a ‘madness’ of the Scottish Government.
The Labour Government with the appointment of James Timpson seems to be wanting to address the long term problem of the judicial system jailing so many people and for so long. This is something which, I am sure the Scottish Government wishes, too. However, because it is the SCOTTISH Government it must be bad.
Alasdair Macdonald.
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