Unhappy Season Ticket Holder

Letter to the editor – 7th March 2023

Oringinally published in the Island Echo – https://www.islandecho.co.uk/the-service-remains-utterly-abysmal-says-angry-wightlink-customer/

I am a season ticket holder paying Wightlink probably over £5000 per year for a passenger season ticket and additional vehicle crossings. The service remains utterly abysmal, with constant delays and cancellations and many suspicious boat maintenance, yet always seems to break down when few bookings.

I pay nearly £100 per month for parking at Ryde Pier Head, but when I arrived today yet again there were absolutely no spaces – it’s utterly rammed, combined with contractor vehicles, and dozens of bays taken up with porta cabins making parking even harder. I have to pay for parking again in Ryde and got absolutely soaked.

I like many dozens of commuters and people seeking better transport for medical appointments on the mainland I have emailed, and written to our MP and got absolutely nothing at all. If there is a photo opportunity he is like a stain on a carpet and can’t get rid of him, yet anything to improve Islander’s life he is stone deaf.

Wightlink is a business, which people appreciate, but when you pay massive prices, you expect the boats to actually run on time and a basic level of service. Wightlink seems absolutely determined to make Island life as hard as possible, and you wonder why you can’t get a dentist appointment on the Island as the few that commuted have given up, too expensive and unreliable.

The same is heading to doctors and nurses, Island towns are ghost towns, businesses boarded up, shops closed. People who were commutting have simply given up and moved back to the mainland.

Its a tough one to call, do I uproot kids from school, take the wife away from friends and elderly family members and moved back to the mainland, or is there any hope our utterly useless MPs might actually pull their fingers out?”

David Turner
East Cowes