PAPER A

NOTES OF EVIDENCE

Meeting	Policy Commission for Economy, Tourism, Regeneration and Transport
Ref	E.PC. 04/04/07
Date	4 April 2007
Time	18.00 hours
Place	Committee Room 1, County Hall, Newport, Isle of Wight
Purpose of meeting	Formal Public Meeting
Attendance	Commission	Cllrs Jonathan Fitzgerald-Bond (Commissioner), Henry Adams, Ivan Bulwer, Charles Hancock, and Arthur Taylor
	Cabinet	Cllr Sutton
	Cabinet Secretariat
	Other Councillors
	Officers	Miss Andrea Lisseter, Committee Services Mr Dave Moore, Planning Projects Team Leader Miss April West, Overview & Scrutiny Team
	Stake holders
	Apologies	Cllr John Hobart, Lora Peacey-Wilcox, Alan Wells
Agenda Items
1 To agree the notes of the previous meeting	1.1 The notes of the meeting held on 14 March 2007 were agreed.
2 To invite Members to declare any interest they might have in the matters on the agenda	2.1 There were no declarations of interest.
3 To receive an update on the results of the public questionnaire from the lead Member on the ports enquiry, Councillor Charles Hancock.	3.1 The Commission received a presentation from Cllr Hancock on the results of the public questionnaire on the ports enquiry. 734 responses had been received in total, 147 of these were online and 587 were paper responses. 3.2 61% of respondents stated that their future frequency of travel would not change, 30% stated that it would increase, and 9% thought it would decrease. 3.3 The main reasons for travel were leisure (107%), shopping (44.4%), business (33.3%), and hospital visits (16.8%). 3.4 The methods of travel to terminals included car share (62.2%), car alone (45.2%), dropped off (27.8%), walk (18.7%), train (16.3%), bus (15.5%), and cycle (2.5%). 3.5 86% of respondents considered the frequency of crossings to be about right while 14% stated crossings were too infrequent. 3.6 46.9% stated that sailings were rarely on time and 37.9% stated that sailings were sometimes on time. 3.7 90% felt that the price of cross Solent travel was too high, 9% felt prices were about right and 1% felt prices were too low. 3.8 The majority of respondents stated that there were rarely traffic problems around ports on the Island (42.9%) while 32.2% felt that there were sometimes traffic problems, 16.4% felt there were no problems, and 8.6% felt there were often traffic problems. 3.9 39.9% felt that there were sometimes traffic problems around ports on the mainland, 32.6% felt there were rarely problems, 16% felt there were often problems, and 11.4% felt that there were no problems. 3.10 Respondents felt that non-users would be encouraged by cheaper fares (96.4%), better service (14.2%), more frequent sailings (12.2%), or felt that there were other methods (7.3%). 3.11 75% felt the Island would benefit from additional routes/services. 3.12 Potential new routes from the mainland were suggested including Portsmouth, Portsmouth Continental ferry port, Mile End Quay, Fareham, Ocean Village, Southsea, Gosport, Browndown, Stokes Bay, Lee on Solent, Hill Head, Warsash, the Hamble, Selsey, Southampton, Leep, Calshot, Fawley, Dibden, Lymington, and Hurst point. 3.13 Suggested new routes from the Island included Medina, Cowes, East Cowes, Osborne, Barton Hard, Kings Quay, Woodside, Fishbourne, Ryde, East Wight, Bembridge, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventnor, West Wight, Fort Albert, Fort Victoria, Yarmouth, Boulder Copse, Thorness Bay, and Gurnard. 3.14 73.4% of respondents stated that they would use cross Solent high speed vehicle ferries and 26.6% stated that they wouldn’t use one. 3.15 604 comments had been received in total. The comments related to the price of fares, concessions for Islanders, competition among ferries, parking issues, frequency of crossings, the suggestion of a fixed link, and traffic congestion/access issues. 3.16 The blue paper would be received by the Commission in June 2007.