Having recently been significantly inconvenienced by a particular silly Wightlink error I feel the time has come to find a realistic pragmatic solution to the Island’s ferry problems.

I feel the behaviour of the ferry companies penalises life on the Island on many fronts — for instance I would ask who would start a business here with the known ferry service and reliability problems?

Tourism must be also damaged, especially in the shoulder holiday periods, because of the prices/reputational difficulties of Wightlink in particular.

The most serious recent issue has been that I expect the ferries have contributed to the Covid spread on the Island with overcrowded boats operating reduced timetables.

Then finally there is the obvious day to day frustration of Islanders trying to use the services.

Read more: Easter Wightlink ferry disruption

I propose that Wightlink and Red Funnel are placed under the regulatory regime run by Ofwat.

This organisation controls pricing in the water industry where the various water companies typically operate a monopoly.

It is designed to ensure the water companies achieve a reasonable profit on the assets they employ and can fund their capital expenditure.

Initially profits should be regulated, by controlling ticket prices, to a typical level of return for a low risk transport company.

I understand that there is no regulation whatsoever at present.

Going forward the companies should be allowed additional profits based on:

• Reliability — cross use of boats, preventative maintenance etc.

• Punctuality

• Effective customer communication.

• Operating a full timetable — a public service obligation.

• Cleanliness of the boats.

• Cross training of staff — all the way to CEO level — to avoid the frequent failures of service because of missing crew members.

• Annual customer service surveys.

• And I am sure there are others......

This initiative would not require government funding to buy out existing shareholders and will not require significant management oversight/cost — Ofwat already exists.

It is doable and would not require much legislation.

Importantly it does not involve the ferry businesses being taken into the public sector which I know has been suggested but which I expect would lead to service levels dropping further.

And most importantly of all it should lead to an immediate reduction in ticket prices.

I feel, particularly in the case of Wightlink, the pandemic has shown that the current private equity type ownership does not work when there is a public service obligation.

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