Report on Impact of Ferry Travel on Young People

The young people on the Isle of Wight are disadvantaged.  Whilst this is true of many on the mainland too this is exacerbated by having a stretch of water that separates them from opportunities. The report by University of Portsmouth (Phase 1: Impact of Physical Separation from the UK Mainland on Isle of Wight Public Service Delivery, 2015) identifies the ways in which the Island is negatively impacted by the physical dislocation. For this report, Wightlink User Group asked for young people’s experiences of living this reality and uses their testimony to highlight the issues they face. It must be noted that for everyone providing their account of the difficulties they face, there are untold numbers who simply never had the chance to engage with education, leisure, training, sport or culture on the mainland due to cost in money and time.

The University of Portsmouth report notes a wide range of challenges posed by the ‘Island Premium’. Those specifically affecting young people include the restriction in delivery of a broad range of educational provision, for example A Level combinations, T Level provision or apprenticeships. The survey heard about young people who had to travel to access such provision. In addition, many young people attempting to pursue sport or cultural activities at a higher level than could be provided locally, noted the challenges the ferry services posed to their success.

Significantly, most do not complain about price (although that may be because it has become accepted as part of the ‘deal’ of living on an Island), but the frequency of services which appears to be the major obstacle preventing young people from engaging freely and fully with work, education, culture and sport beyond the Island

The testimony of young people and their families is presented here under the headings of work, education, culture and sport.

Work

• I am in my 20’s, living on the island. I work in London and moved back here during the pandemic to be close to my family and have stayed here since.I love living here and being around people I love, but the work opportunities the island offers are very slim and so I have to keep my job in the city. Wightlink makes it very difficult for me to do so. What should be a couple of hours’ journey from London to the IOW often ends up being 3-4 hours long because of the wait times between the train arriving in Portsmouth and a boat being run. I am also studying for a master’s degree in London one evening a week, and so have been travelling up in the morning to work my day job, studying until 8:30pm and then making my way back to the island afterwards. If the boat was running just 15 minutes later, I would be able to catch the last fast cat. But instead, I have to wait for over an hour in Portsmouth for the car ferry and get home at about 1: 30am.This is utterly ridiculous. The boats are controlling and limiting our freedom, making the island feel like a prison for those that live on it. (Jessica)
• I’m 21 and I work as a security officer. I would love to start my own business outside of this, however I can’t, because I need to be able to afford a plot of land or warehouse. So, in order to fund my future business endeavours, I took up working for security. However, as I now live on the island, work is scarce and most of the time I am having to go over to the mainland for training (training is only provided on the mainland), refresher training and work itself. I worked at the Queen’s funeral and now the King’s coronation and both times the ferry prices have been put up and made working there actually pointless in terms of making money. For the ferry this time, going over for the King’s coronation, if I booked the ticket in advance, a single passenger return in a small car fare, would have been nearly £400. I left it till the last minute and was surprised to see that the ticket then got reduced to £150 which is still crazy but much better. At this current point in time, the Blue Light card does NOT allow SIA officers to get a card, so we don’t get access to the Wightlink discounts. Due to my work experiences, I’m being offered amazing jobs all around the country, Goodwood, Kent, Twickenham, London, but I’m having to turn them all down because it’s not financially viable to travel over the ferry. If I’m earning an average of £12 an hour and work a 12-hour shift, earning £144 for that day, it doesn’t even cover the ferry. If I earn amazing £16 an hour on high profile jobs such as the Queen’s funeral and King’s coronation (VERY rare to get paid that much), working 12-hour shifts, earning £192 for the day, that then leaves me with £42 for a day’s work. That’s the equivalent to £3.50 an hour, out of which I then have to buy fuel, food, bills, etc. Even if I do 20 hour shifts (which I did at both the royal events to actually try and make some money, as well as camp in a tent in a field for the duration of both so I didn’t have to pay for multiple ferry crossings or hotels) that then leaves me with £320 – £150 = £170 for the day, which is the same as £8.50 an hour for a security officer putting my life on the line alongside police officers and the military. That’s again below the national minimum wage, so every single job I take, I either lose money, or don’t even break even. Being a resident on the Island, living on the Island with the only way on or off the Island and getting no financial support or discount for that, I’m now having to turn down more jobs than I am accepting which is damaging my reputation and stopping people from offering me jobs. I’m at a position where I either have to change my work profession, or move off the Island, but I cannot move off the island because I’m 21, can’t afford it and I’m not making any money. I’m basically being forced to try and find a job on the Island, of which there aren’t very many, especially in security. As my CV is filled with high profile security stuff, I’m kind of boxed-in when it comes down to work that people would accept me for. Even going as a foot passenger isn’t worth it, because then I have to pay for public transport. With the combined ferry prices, it actually makes going with a car cheaper! Raising the prices for peak time and events for members of the public is one thing, doing it to residents of the island is a whole other but either way, it’s still too expensive. If I’m in a position where I cannot work, cannot afford to live, cannot afford to commute, and being forced and dictated to what I can and cannot do and where I can and cannot do it, all because of the ferry prices, then something is seriously wrong there. I moved to the island last December and now I’m put in a position where my credit card is maxed out, I cannot afford my bills, I can’t work in the profession I’m currently in. I’m being forced to do other job applications and apply for Universal Credit to help keep me going. That provides £200 a month, which doesn’t even cover my car insurance as I’m 21 and premiums are so high. So yeah, I’m pretty stuck at the moment, due to the ferry costs so I’m once again living with my mother. I’ve been offered the amazing opportunity as well to study at Warsash Maritime school in Southampton to become a deck officer in the merchant navy, but I’m also having to turn down that degree-equivalent job offer because I can’t afford to commute and can’t afford to get a place over there because for the first 3 years of training, they would only pay me £800 a month, which wouldn’t cover everything.
  
  

Education

• We have had 2 sons attend Brockenhurst College at a gap of 5 years apart.  They had foot passenger season tickets, just like anyone else would.  I don’t think you could say they got any help or assistance in attending college. Short notice cancellations and inability to help the young people when the trains didn’t match up were a worry when they’re away from you. (Sue Biss)
• Travel meant I was a lot more tired than a lot of other students because I had to wake up earlier to do the commute and get home later. Cut down on time in the evenings I could have been revising because it took ma a long time to get home. Extra pressure during exam season because of the stress if the boat would run or be on time. (Student attending Portsmouth College for sixth-form as A Level combination was not possible locally)
• When we organise trips for students to see cultural events or experiences it’s costs us up to 40% more per child than mainland schools. When our dancing teams go the mainland students have to stay up all night to get home because of the late night ferries unless we try and find the money to put them up. Most recently, students on a rewards trip got home 6 hours late because of ferry cancellations – in the end we had 150 students stuck in Portsmouth with no cafe service. We ended up funding a massive Uber Eats delivery and got the kids onto a ferry without coaches as foot passengers. Then forked out for taxis for the kids from Fishbourne for parents of kids who could not pick them up. Our research suggests IOW children pay on average 40% more for trips than their mainland counterparts. (Anon secondary school leader)

Culture

• My son, who lives here, is due to perform at the Wedgewood rooms in October with his band…. I would guess it is unlikely there will be much support for their island-based fans as they would have to leave the gig at 10pm at the very latest to walk to the Fast cat or catch the car ferry and hope that Mum or Dad will pick them up from Fishbourne. How utterly demoralising for youngster to have to rely on their parent and what a shame that band can’t expect support from the island. My main concern is that this is all having a grossly negative effect on the mental health of both the people here and mainland-based families. Islanders are very isolated, purely because of the loss of the late and early morning boats.  We are asking for what was in place, not for something new. (Lyn Page)
• Access to cultural life/cultural exchange with all the wellbeing, educational and enterprise possibilities in a region focussed on this sector and with Art Council priority status, ultimately comes to naught if possibilities are cut off by uncompromising philistine ferry timetable. This isn’t just about getting off the island to gigs, although it is definitely that, it’s also about recognising that the island has a growing cultural, arts and music offer capable of bringing people here too.  And all of the above is especially relevant in important ways to young people and their outlook on island life.  The demographic, socio-economic and human health challenges that the island will face in the next decade will be of an order of magnitude above anything in the last 50 years and our relationship with the Solent as a region will be absolutely essential (it is after all a region of inhabited islands) and everything the ferries are doing is leaching away a better future. (Ian Boyd)
• Ferry travel has impacted him (a very high-achieving musician) significantly. When he went to London every Saturday for lessons whilst at school, the ferry at 6.45 enabled him to get to London in time for 9.30am lessons. But…everything stopped for Covid and when services returned to ‘normal’ they never reinstated the 6.45am. This combined with the backward step in providing services by the railways meant that he struggled to get to London before 11am. Similarly coming back after concerts was difficult when they stopped ferries running later than 8.30pm it meant coming back across to Fishbourne with the **** ache of then getting back to find the car in Ryde. Reduced ferry times really impact him. Concerts rarely happen during the day! Whenever he has a performance on the mainland our arrangements have to be made with the limitations of ferry travel in mind.
• Because of the ferry times, I will have to travel up to London with my daughter on Friday evenings and stay with my brother so she can attend her Saturday lessons every week. (Mother of a musician)

Education

• We have had 2 sons attend Brockenhurst College at a gap of 5 years apart.  They had foot passenger season tickets, just like anyone else would.  I don’t think you could say they got any help or assistance in attending college. Short notice cancellations and inability to help the young people when the trains didn’t match up were a worry when they’re away from you. (Sue Biss)
• Travel meant I was a lot more tired than a lot of other students because I had to wake up earlier to do the commute and get home later. Cut down on time in the evenings I could have been revising because it took ma a long time to get home. Extra pressure during exam season because of the stress if the boat would run or be on time. (Student attending Portsmouth College for sixth-form as A Level combination was not possible locally)
• When we organise trips for students to see cultural events or experiences it’s costs us up to 40% more per child than mainland schools. When our dancing teams go the mainland students have to stay up all night to get home because of the late night ferries unless we try and find the money to put them up. Most recently, students on a rewards trip got home 6 hours late because of ferry cancellations – in the end we had 150 students stuck in Portsmouth with no cafe service. We ended up funding a massive Uber Eats delivery and got the kids onto a ferry without coaches as foot passengers. Then forked out for taxis for the kids from Fishbourne for parents of kids who could not pick them up. Our research suggests IOW children pay on average 40% more for trips than their mainland counterparts. (Anon secondary school leader)

Sport

• When I worked at the Isle of Wight College, I was involved indirectly with the Football Academy. One of the issues the students and tutors faced was getting the mainland clubs to travel to the Island to play.  This was in part due to the cost of the ferries but also the gaps between crossings making their day too long, so our teams invariably had to play away. This created a psychological and physical impact on the young footballers as they were rarely able to play a home game with their own supporters, thus reinforcing their isolation.  The academy folded after Covid and I am unsure of the reasons, but I imagine that the impact of increased fares and even less frequent and reliable crossings will have played some part. To their credit Wightlink does sponsor some young people to compete in their sport on the mainland. However, those groups that don’t attract sponsorship are further isolated and a reduced and less reliable service creates very long days for youngsters having to get up for school or college the next day. (Pat Suttmann)

• Another son attended Portsmouth FC Academy for 3 years for which he was sponsored. Sport does seem to attract support from them.  However, that didn’t take away the challenge of how a young lad sorted out dealing with a cancelled Fast Cat at night, on his own, in Portsmouth. We live in Freshwater so use Yarmouth mainly, but their limited timetable is so annoying in supporting our family with their current commitments on the mainland.  Son 3 is still playing football and when he’s home there are times when he seriously can’t get off the Island from this side early enough to travel to the match or get back in time for the last ferry.  Adding extra earlier sailings in the summer does nothing to help our students and young people who have year-round needs. (Sue Biss)
• My experience is that playing mid Solent football was tough as sailings didn’t always meet kick off times due to full ferries or late running ferries so players only just got to games on time or were there very early. Also teams miss out on playing higher standard and challenging themselves to be better due to the ferry costs and extra time it takes out of the day. (Manager IW Youth Football Team)
• My daughter (12) has been swimming competitively since age 9.  She has really high aspirations but being on the island limits us in a number of ways. Here is a table of results from 2023 Hampshire County Champs: https://www.swimmeets.org/calendar/showevent.php?id=980 Seaclose (Newport) comes last year on year. The point I am trying to make that if you want to take swimming seriously you have to look outside of the island. There is honestly no other way. Portsmouth Northsea is the best club in the whole of the county (in fact regionally too with the swimmers succeeding nationally!) My daughter has gone to try sessions there (entry isn’t guaranteed). She was offered a place and the sad reality is – we couldn’t accept it.  I shall also add that this is the closest club outside of the island for us. The club requires at least three sessions a week for the swimmer. We cannot make any of the early morning swims as there isn’t a passenger ferry early enough to get us there on time (and back on time to get my daughter to school). Early swims start at 5:15 in the morning. So we have evening swims left only. Evening swims are 17:00-19:00.  My daughter’s school doesn’t finish until 16.20 – she needs school permission to leave early for training. With the crossing times we need to get 15:45 over – park at the pier.  Back at 20:20 because making the 19:20 is not always possible. My daughter is 12 so she can’t make this journey alone. So we have 1 adult and 1 child crossing each way. So here are the costs: for parking, crossings and busses: £483 per month – this is just to get to and from training.  this doesn’t include… going to meets. Please name one normal family that can afford this? This is the cost of a mortgage for some people. Now let’s turn this upside down for a second and check on the feasibility of a swimming coach to come to the island. If for example, a local club wanted to hire and pay a coach from the mainland to come to the IOW and train kids here (I am not saying they do – this is just a feasibility check) Pool training times are 6.15-7.30 some days 18:15-20:15 on others. So you have early morning and late evenings. First passenger ferry into the island is at 5:15 – with some luck you might get to Newport on time you would need to have a car waiting for you from the pier though – even with that it’s a squeeze.  On the way back its 21:45. Let’s face it – not social hours at all so you would likely want/need to get the car ferry. With a pass that’s 90 to just come to your workplace in one day. Who can afford that? Local clubs certainly can’t and no sane person will sign up for this. So yes – we are completely doomed. (Anonymous)

My niece and my daughter, both show jump and competing on an even playing field coming from the island. It’s difficult as qualifying for all the national championships require you to gain points which is extremely costly and requires multiple trips.  (Sharon Read)