Norman Baker MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, has agreed to accept two deputations on the matter of the IOS Ferry Link on 15 Dec 10 at the House of Commons. One will be pressing for funding of this vital lifeline project and avoidance of any further delay whilst the other will, presumably, press him to withold funding and delay the project (you could not make it up). The first invitation is to the Council of Isles of Scilly who will be attending with key representatives from Cornwall Council and its project team. They will be making the case for the vital lifeline project to be funded as soon as possible given the state of the two harbours, MCA’s concerns over the Scillonian III and high risk of the loss of the helicopter service later next year. The second meeting will be with a deputation comprising representatives of Penzance Town Council and Penzance Business Network. Given past form they will be lobbying to prevent the Ferry Link project proceeding as currently planned and offering an alternative solution (Option Pz). Controversy has already arisen about the Town Council representatives taking along Penzance Business Network whose name suggests to outsiders (and perhaps ministers) that they are representative of general business interests in Penzance which generally they are not (but the Penzance Chamber of Commerce is). See following news items for exchanges between Chair of the Penzance Chamber and Andrew George MP on this matter. Comment The IOS
deputation resulted from an invitation made by Norman Baker to Marian Bennett,
Vice Chair CIOS on around 8 Oct 10 at a regional meeting held by the DofT at Exeter. Etiquette requires that requests for meetings with ministers are made
through the constituency MP (Andrew George in this case). A request was made to the MP in early October
but nothing happened. At the FofPH public meeting in St Johns Hall on 22 Oct 2010
Andrew George promised Marian Bennett (after she addressed the meeting and
raised the matter) that he would arrange the meeting with the
Minister. Reportedly, he tried to
arrange for a joint meeting where both CIOS and Penzance Town Council would be
present but the CIOS refused on the grounds that Penzance Town Council were not
part of the Route Partnership and were not supporting the current plans for
which the CIOS are seeking funding. The planned meeting on the 15th Dec comes approximately 2 months after the CIOS request was originally made. Since 8 Mar 10 when the Option A was blessed by the Strategic Planning Committee the predicament of Islanders has become starker.
The proposal from objectors to go back to the drawing board and work up a new solution is therefore a nightmare for the Islanders as the target date for introducing the new ferry into service would slip 3 years to 2016 (or later) and Islanders would be faced with the likelihood of no helicopter service from Sep 2011, additional significant restrictions on the Scillonian III’s operations and dependence on Skybus alone during the winter months for passenger services.
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