Better idea for extra channel ferries.

awol

awol

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Why is the government giving a £13.8M contract to an unproven start-up with no ships, no harbour agreements, no assets? Wouldn't they be better giving it to CMAL, a company with a proven track record of running a ferry service, ships and harbours and have royally pissed off their customer base in the process?
 
Perhaps because the Govt. were fearful that a Scottish outfit would wish to add to the chaos of a no-deal Brexit to better enhance the chance of a successful Scottish Independence vote.
 
Great idea, CMAL could add to the chaos without needing to try, but in the scale of things it is hardly likely to be noticed, and they have prettier ships. The islanders could each be given £10,000 to stay at home for a month, it would hardly be missed out of the Brexit budget and would cheer them up enormously.
 
Perhaps they should press Albion & Bulwark into x-channel service. They might save some money and give the crew soothing to do other than being tied up alongside.....
 
We have RFA Gold Rover and Black Rover single skin fuel tankers sat in pompey harbour waiting to be sold for scrap, they could be pressed into action if not for transporting containers then coastal patrol, They would need some adaption for sure for either role but doable
 
Why not make more use of use of Newhaven/Dieppe service. All the facilities in place and only one sailing a day during the winter?
 
Stobart said:
Why not make more use of use of Newhaven/Dieppe service. All the facilities in place and only one sailing a day during the winter?
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Best build a road to Newhaven before doing that. The daft thing is that there is not going to be a shortage of ships,rather a shortage of infrastructure to deal with the border checks and bureaucracy that is likely to occur. Better still lets have a common sense attack and cancel the whole ludicrous excercise.
 
awol said:
Why is the government giving a £13.8M contract to an unproven start-up with no ships, no harbour agreements, no assets? Wouldn't they be better giving it to CMAL, a company with a proven track record of running a ferry service, ships and harbours and have royally pissed off their customer base in the process?
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Why do we need emergency extra ferry capacity if no-deal Brexit. Either the amount of freight will be the same or it will be less?

TudorSailor
 
Biggles Wader said:
Best build a road to Newhaven before doing that. The daft thing is that there is not going to be a shortage of ships,rather a shortage of infrastructure to deal with the border checks and bureaucracy that is likely to occur. Better still lets have a common sense attack and cancel the whole ludicrous excercise.
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The road to Ramsgate isn't great either..and the trains aren't brilliant despite efforts at speeding them up a bit.
The same problems as using the huge ex-RAF base Manston as another "London" airport..
It would be a shame to see historical Rambo seafront looking like Dover with HGV's roaring through as well.
 
tudorsailor said:
Why do we need emergency extra ferry capacity if no-deal Brexit. Either the amount of freight will be the same or it will be less?

TudorSailor
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The issue is not about capacity, but flexibility - using underutilised ports such as Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth for example.
 
tudorsailor said:
Why do we need emergency extra ferry capacity if no-deal Brexit. Either the amount of freight will be the same or it will be less?
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Not following this one but I assume the thinking is that Dover/Calais would be gridlocked by the newly required customs and immigration checks (and everyone with any knowledge of the situation on the ground agrees that it would be) and so it will help a little bit to add new links elsewhere and beef up other existing ones.

Pete
 
Brittany Ferries boss was on TV when this was announced explaining the thinking behind it as part of their ongoing preparations for Brexit. Usage of the western ports has declined over the years because of the longer overall transit times for goods destined for the larger demand markets in the east.

Living in Poole I can see the majority of the freight traffic goes directly north rather than East towards London. It is limited however by the poor roads for the first 80 miles.
 
It would be nice to see the Rosyth Zeebrugge route restored, and to see more utitlisastion of Newcastle too. They already have the hardware and customs in place. Indeed it would be good to see some service going north of Netherlands on the North Sea route. I wish the extra cash could be used on that, rather than given to Ramsgate.
 
awol said:
Why is the government giving a £13.8M contract to an unproven start-up with no ships, no harbour agreements, no assets? Wouldn't they be better giving it to CMAL, a company with a proven track record of running a ferry service, ships and harbours and have royally pissed off their customer base in the process?
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In many occassions there is no commercial logic in awarding contracts to companies; often winning companies are very good in "corporate lubrication"
 
Cmal have a major problem with ferries as is. Their new one is way behind schedule and when normal ones break down they are often out of service for weeks getting repaired. I'm a regular on the Ardrossan Arran route. It's chaos when one of their elastic bands break. The extra vessel they have on during summer months is 35 years old. The islanders won't book it if they have to get off for something as it regularly doesn't run
 
It was stated that the company in question will not actually get any money until they actually start running ferries so there is little government risk economically.
Media wise it may be different.
However, the existing infrastructure already copes with the overall QUANTITY of goods passing too & fro so surely the problem is the actual delays at docks passing customs checks.
So surely all HMRC has to do in times of emergency is just wave stuff through. Good for smugglers, but the amount of smuggling during short term will be relatively insignificant in overall terms. The amount going through existing Ro Ro ferry terminals is not really so difficult to handle - is it? The major ports like Felixtowe etc will still have checks on container & bulk traffic traffic, so loss of revenue will be limited.
The problem is not this end it is when it reaches the EU & there are a number of ports to which ferries can be re routed. Put in a few more ferries to take up the extra traveling time (if they are at sea then they are not in port, so ports can cope) & it is sorted. Holland & Belgium are already gearing up to take trade from France so lorries will be scattered about more at the other end to spread the load & reduce delays. ie they will not all be going via Calais with a massive backlog building up
 
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