Monday: Festival Travel News

By a County Press reporter

Monday, June 25, 2012

 

Monday: Festival Travel News

Festival-goers leaving the site yesterday (Sunday). Picture by Robin Crossley.

UPDATED 14:31*

For latest travel updates please scroll down.

THE operation to help thousands of music fans get home safely has begun.

Extra police have been brought in to help marshal Isle of Wight Festival traffic, while teams of 4x4 Response support vehicles will help tow those stuck in mud.

On Thursday, festival-goers were forced to sleep in their cars and residents were hit by widespread disruption, however organisers have put in place a plan to avoid a repeat of the problems.

Inspector Paul Savill from the police’s event planning team said: "Our priority is preventing disruption and delays to roads and residents during the morning school run and rush hours’ period, crucially between 7.30am and 9am.

"Everyone involved in the organisation of this event has redoubled their efforts to ensure the egress of people is safe and as swift as possible.

"The exit of the remaining festival goers from all car parks is being managed carefully to control traffic flow and minimise congestion to the local community."

He said roadsweepers had cleared the main routes around the site and that tractors and 4x4s were on hand to assist in muddy conditions.

He added: "We are grateful for the public’s patience, understanding and support. Their offers of assistance is a testament to the strong community spirit that prevails at times of adverse weather.

"More police officers and staff remain on duty so we have the resources to respond to any emergencies swiftly to keep residents and festival goers safe."

He advised drivers to test their brakes by slowly and gently pressing down on the brake pedal as vehicles may take longer to stop because of the mud.

He also asked people to clean their brake lights so they were visible to other motorists and pedestrians.

TRAVEL UPDATES:

*2:31pm Southern Vectis said its Route 1 service was still not stopping at the Red Jet terminal, however its Route 5 and 9 services were now running as normal.

 

1:10pm Police are due to end restrictions in Fairlee Road shortly. A few hundred cars remain on site according to police.

11:52am Vectis 4x4 Response and its mainland counterparts are preparing to stand down, with just a few cars left on site, according to co-ordinator John Marr.

"Over the weekend we have had about 90 vehicles on site, which is the largest single deployment for 4x4 Response. Everyone has worked extremely hard and is extremely filthy," he said.

11:08am Wightlink advised that foot passengers at Ryde were waiting approximately 20 minutes, and cars that were not booked, were waiting approximately 30 minutes at Fishbourne and 60 minutes at Yarmouth.

10:08am Island Line services between Ryde Pier Head and Shanklin are running normally following earlier delays.

9:49am Less than 500 cars remain on the fetsival site, according to the Isle of Wight Council. A spokesman said that some vehicles were towed from the mud yesterday to speed up today's operation. There were no reports of any traffic issues on the roads, a spokesman said.

9:42am Island Line services are running, with some delays, following this morning's signalling problems.

8:49am Three cars were involved in a collision at Smallbrook this morning. No-one was injured and the road remained open according to police.

8:31am Signalling problems have led to the suspension of Island Line services.

8:20am Southern Vectis Route 1 will not stop at the Red Jet terminal until further notice. All buses will start and finish at Cowes Co-op.

From 7.30am to 9am: the number of fans leaving the site will be controlled by police to reduce the impact on residents.

Wightlink is operating a revised timetable and has advised that vehicles will not be accepted at terminals until 30 minutes prior to booked departure time. 

Regular passenger commuters using season ticket or multi-link ticket holders will be treated as reserved passengers, but should arrive a minimum of 15 minutes before scheduled departure to guarantee boarding.

Red Funnel has asked vehicle passengers not to arrive more than one hour before their booked departure time. All foot passengers will be boarded on a first come, first served basis.

Holders of books of tickets, 12 month, 6 month, 30 day and seven-day season tickets, Travel Card customers, elderly and disabled customers and passengers with NHS/Hospital appointments for these dates will be prioritised but delays should still be expected. Customers are advised to allow additional time for onward connections.

USEFUL WEBSITES:

Southern Vectis www.islandbuses.info

The Isle of Wight Council www.iwight.com

Community Emergency and Information Facebook page click here.

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Displaying the last 10 of 15 comments - Show All Comments

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by Alan Walters

26th June 2012, at 18:36:14

Diane. I was one of the ones who had to wait 4 hours to be taken out from the car park. Everyone was obviously keen to be away as soon as possible but I saw no priority being given to anyone or profiteering by the farmers who had come to help; in fact I witnessed on numerous occasions drivers, including myself, offering cash as a 'thank you' after being selected as the next to go only for the farmers to make it very clear that any donation was appreciated but was not a condition of being helped. They have a lot of peoples appreciation for the way they dealt with things.

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by DIANE WOODHOUSE

26th June 2012, at 16:27:27

Whilst we as residents have been asked to help stranded festival goers and many good souls have . I have also heard tractors on site were charging £20 a tow to get on and off the campsite. If this is true they should be ashamed thats just blatant profiteering at the expense of others misery. Can anyone confirm this is true ???
Well done to 4 x 4 fast response group who did it for free !

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by Paul Jacobs

25th June 2012, at 20:48:49

Contrition Mr Giddings. When things go wrong in my business I hold up my hands and apologise. Sometimes things go wrong, shoulder the blame you will be a better person for it.

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by Don Prescott

25th June 2012, at 18:23:58

Having had some past dealings with this arrogant "promoter", I agree entirely with all the previous comments.
The heavy rain was well predicted and Giddings made NO attempt to provide better access to the site along with his "partners".
Instead he left vehicle drivers to try their best to get onto the site which soon became a ploughed field.
This caused massive tailbacks and ferries unable to disembark vehicles.
The whole scenario and his caustic comments about Andrew Turner gave the impression that he gives not a flying fig for anyone but himself, which is the truth.
The attitude is"I've had your money so stick it if you don't like it".
90,000 punters at roughly £130 is just short of £12 million. Not bad is it?

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by R Griffiths

25th June 2012, at 14:24:41

I see Giddings is "livid" at the comments made by Andrew Turner regarding the chaos on Thursday. What is an elected MP supposed to do when he receives 1000's of complaints from his constituents?
Spot on James - instead of Giddings being 'livid' why doesn't he put his hands up and say yes we got it wrong we should have had contin gency plams. sorry we dont understand weather forcatss, had no clue the fields were allreadyt wet and rain was frorcast Wednesday night. If he and his organisers admitted they got it wrong it woudl go a long way to placate some of the critcism. All the time there are excuses excuses excuses blaming on eveyone except their lack of contingency plamming in the light of CLEAR forcasts of weather problems. We we 4 days on the I Island (and got away Thursday night thankfully) and planned ourt days round the weather forcasts which were pretty accurate. How come the festival ogansisers didn't watch the wethare forrcasts and plan accordingly. It is a known f

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by alix parsons

25th June 2012, at 14:03:45

well said, Chris Bertrand......i totallly agree with you, my 12y old daughter spent over 3 hours on a 'school' bus that stank of beer & had sick on the floor!! & didn't get home until after 7pm on thursday!! her school bus was canceled on friday,so no school for her!......i'm not sure what time her bus got her to school this morning!........ I do think the festival didn't benefit the local comunity this year, as no one was coming and going as much as they normally would!......may be there should be less campers so the hotels, b&b's etc would have more trade & it would be less cars going to one place.....

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by James McAdder

25th June 2012, at 13:39:07

@ Chris Bertrand.

Don't get me started on the whol "taking kids out of school" thing. As you say, you want to take a child out of school for a week you have to jump through flaming hoops, but the schools are quite happy to drop "development" days on you and expect you to make arrangements to cope.

What really gets my goat are the teachers going on strike over pensions and expecting me to take a day off work to cover them. Where were THEY when my private sector pension was being massacred by Gordon Brown & Co

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by James McAdder

25th June 2012, at 13:31:37

I see Giddings is "livid" at the comments made by Andrew Turner regarding the chaos on Thursday. What is an elected MP supposed to do when he receives 1000's of complaints from his constituents?

He's going to be even more livid when the claims for loss of earnings and lost business start coming in. Happy to trouser the profits, but not to do the right thing by people who were SERIOUSLY inconvenienced by this debacle (lost wages / business, kids stuck at school, missed hospital / doctors appointments, missed funerals, etc, etc.). Expectant mothers were having to be taken to St Mary's by blue-light ambulance instead of being driven in by their partners. How much does an ambulance call-out cost? Is Giddings going to pay for this?

Oh look! A flypast by the Porcine Air Force.

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by Kara Rann

25th June 2012, at 12:19:00

The fact I couldn't get my two year old home, and he had to sleep in the same days clothes overnight at a relatives is all I need to say.

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by Colin Russell

25th June 2012, at 11:45:02

I,m with you Chris on this one, it has cost the Island alright, I wonder if the council has paid out any of our money over this lash up, also when the voting time comes around i would to see a slip in there as well asking the Island people if we want this festival here, while we are voting coco and his clowns out.

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.

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