Meeting with minister over Solent ferry travel

Why do we need a fixed link. we are in no worse state than the rest of the country.

Wightlink made around £25,000 A DAY profit from running ferries to and from the Island last year. It's rumoured they paid very little in UK tax on these 'earnings.' To be fair, they didn't make £25,000 every day, in the winter the profit is modest - in the summer it is staggering. Now they have cut night sailings, we should expect to see £10 - 11 million profit this current year. They cannot easily hide these figures. I wonder how they will 'manage' this news when it comes?

We badly need a fixed link but until we know if it's to be a tunnel or bridge, costing it is pointless.

Anyone want money on Wightlink's best buddy, David Pugh joining this delegation?

the difference between the two is that the old ferry pays for the new one.

I suppose the answer to that, Neil, is they are long term investments that will take years to pay back. I would imagine your average car ferry is tens of millions to buy initially, no one would expect to recoup that short term. Any bridge would most probably be financed by a consortium comprising building companies and capital investors so what would seem like vast sums to us mere mortals would be a lot less worrying to multi national companies, who would continue to collect revenue for as long as the bridge, fixed link, whatever, remained standing.

Say you were one of the investors in the building project. You stump up, I don't know say £10million. Over how long a period would you be prepared to have that sort of money invested in something that might produce a few thousand pounds a month. Remember the people who rant on about a fixed link are usually after cheaper crossings over the Solent, so what you going to charge £20 return? That's what 500,000 return tickets sold just to break even on your investment.

No one stumps up that sort of cash without getting some sort of return. For the amount of risk involved and the time period you'd want at least double back.

If it was a viable investment it would have been done years ago.

so come on mike crowe answer my question or continue to be regarded as a fantasist.

Warren: spot on.

if the bridge were built at a cost of £1,000,000, i know thats pie in the sky but its only a figure, the cost of a single crossing was £20, thats 50,000 vehicles crossing before profit, as much as id prefer a bridge since they banned us from staying in the car on crossings, i cant see it ever being built because it will be many times that figure

I think as long as the ferry companies run a value for money service and a frequent service, then people would not be as fussed about a bridge. But when you have to wait an hour to cross a bit of water realising that you could probably swim it, the novelty wears off!

The cost is wrong, it was $5.7 billion US dollars, but is a massively more substantial project than the Island would need.

Any views or opinions presented in the comments above are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the Isle of Wight County Press.