Warren Whyte, Freshwater:

It’s good to see the chief executive of Wightlink take the time to respond to issues raised in the County Press, but sadly so many complaints are still left unanswered.

Such as why the Lymington to Yarmouth crossing still ends at 8pm - seriously affecting anyone who works or travels to the New Forest and the South West, or attempting to connect to an evening train from London.

Or why the third Lymington-Yarmouth ferry is still rarely used resulting in poor timetabling and lack of capacity for Multilink passes, which impacts the Fishbourne service at peak times such as the evening of Friday, April 28, when there were no ferries from Portsmouth available for Multilink users - presumably to cash in on bigger non-pass fares.

It can’t be right that it was cheaper for me to stay on the mainland in a hotel and come back on Saturday?



I have generally found the Wightlink service to be good, and the staff very accommodating, but post-Covid, the company is clearly squeezing its assets; impacting Island residents that rely on regular Solent travel for work, family or health reasons, and also putting our tourism industry at risk with appalling peak ferry prices - to the extent that I’ve met people who have decided to go elsewhere around the UK, or cross the Channel to France for less.

Considering Mr Greenfield is a director of our Chamber of Commerce, I hope he can explain what he is doing to avoid killing off this hugely important part of the island economy.

I’ve raised these issues with Iain Stewart MP, chairman of the transport select committee, and our MP Bob Seely, as I believe we need to instigate more formal political interventions, such as some level of public service obligation.

We rightly expect this for our important train and bus routes, so it seems right to also apply this to our critical transport links across the Solent.