new fastcat catamarans

Petition calls for charter boat to service commuters during annual catamaran refit, or reduction in cost of season tickets

An online petition started by Islander Natasha Lee calling for Wightlink to “stop reducing passenger services”, has attracted over 150 signatures since it was launched earlier this month.

Those who rely on Wightlink to commute for work on the mainland are unhappy that whilst the catamarans are having their annual service (between 15th January and 3rd March) the company won’t be providing a replacement service, but instead have reduced their timetable to running mostly only once an hour.

The petition calls for:

Wightlink to be forced to either: take steps to replace the lost service (for their customers) over the next month-and-a-half; and if they don’t, I believe that they should be forced to adjust customer charges (annual/ monthly travel costs) I suggest a partial reimbursement, appropriate to represent to the loss of service.

Natasha finishes by saying

“I want to make sure that Wightlink cannot keep reducing their service, in order to save money, without also being proportionately reduce their customer charges.”

MP monitoring performance
In October Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Bob Seely, pledged to monitor the service performance of the cross-Solent operators.

OnTheWight approached Bob earlier today to ask what action he’s taken in relation to the reduction in Wightlink catamaran services during the annual refit period and will update once we hear back.

OnTheWight also asked Wightlink earlier today why they have chosen to not provide a charter boat to keep the twice hourly service in place for commuters and will update once we hear back.

The petition
If you wish to sign the petition, pop over to the e-petitions Website.