At Monday night’s Isle of Wight council Executive Committee meeting, members voted in favour of carrying out a public consultation on a proposal to introduce foot passenger fares of 50p each way for over 18s on the floating bridge at Cowes.
Cllr Hillard, the Independent ward councillor for East Cowes, expressed her ongoing concerns with the calculations used in the papers when considering potential income from charging foot passengers (this was originally raised at the February budget meeting, but figures on the paperwork have remained the same).
Out-dated numbers
According to Cllr Hillard the figures used were taken from a survey carried out four or five years ago. She stressed they were estimates and the number of cars on the Island had since increased by 3% per year. In addition, she understood the figures did not account for seasonality or the effect of school reorganisation.
Cllr Hillard told members she was not convinced the introduction of charging foot passengers was “viable, either practically or financially” and believed that further work needed to be carried out by officers before a consultation should take place.
Unconsidered costs to the council
Adding more context to her argument, she told members the cost to the council for those with bus passes, travelling free by bus rather than paying to use the floating bridge as foot passengers, had not been taken into consideration.
She said,
“This would work out as a recharge to the council of four individual journeys to get from Cowes to East Cowes and return. We also have to consider the cost of introducing ticket machines and the additional staff to enforce payment.
“It’s therefore unlikely that the predicted income of £400,000 per annum is accurate and it could be considerably less. I think it is likely there could even be a loss in the first year due to capital expenditure on the infrastructure.”
Call for deferment
Cllr Hillard proposed deferring the consultation, “until it has been demonstrated clearly that charging foot passengers is financially viable and functionally practical.”
Senior officer responsible for the paper, John Metcalfe, told members the consultation was a minuted decision at the 26th February full council meeting.
Cllr Stubbings: “A consulting council”
Deputy leader, Cllr Stubbings, replied to the call for deferment, saying,
“We are a consulting council. This administration is absolutely committed to consulting on any decisions that we make that are of significant nature in terms of affecting Island residents and bearing in mind the fact that all we are requesting here is a move towards a consultation, notwithstanding all that Cllr Hillard has said and I understand that those objections may well come back to us at some point, what we’re talking about here is conducting a consultation with the people of the Isle of Wight, so they have an opportunity to have an input into the decisions that we make.
“There will never be anything wrong with that.”
Concerns over calculations echoed
Councillor for Whippingham, Cllr Baker-Smith, said the council would be going out to consultation with incorrect information and until the Executive was 100% sure the information before them was correct, it should not be shared with the public.
She echoed Cllr Hillard’s view that the £400,000 predicted revenue from charging foot passengers 50p each way to use the floating bridge was not achievable, and that the paper hadn’t fully considered the level of attrition should the charges be implemented.
She added,
“I am concerned that should the figures given be put forward to the public in the consultation this could potentially mislead the public.”
Questions posed to Executive
Cllr Baker-Smith finished by putting a number of questions to the Executive. She asked:
- Have the Executive seen the financial justification and a full breakdown of how the £400,000 figure was arrived at?
- Are the Executive aware of the cost of implementing any of the charges?
- Will this be made available as part of the public consultation?
- What is the cost of undertaking the consultation?
- Is it really the intention of the Executive to implent charges following the consultation, because if not there’s no point wasting money on undertaking the consultation [cost of public consultation is estimated to be £2,000. Ed]
Cllr Blezzard praised her “compelling questions” and added there were “compelling arguments” for not introducing foot passenger charges on the floating bridge.
Consulting on the principle
John Metcalfe told members,
“It’s not really about sharing with people what the business plan says about how much money it could generate, or might generate, it’s about consulting on the principle, the framework of if we did choose to apply charges, how that would applied and how that would be implemented.”
He went on to add that a further report would return to the Executive following any consultation.
The principle will change
Cllr Baker-Smith was given a last word,
“Mr Metcalfe pointed out that this is just the principle of charges, but the principle would be very different depending on a) the potential revenue and b) the use of that revenue. People’s responses would reflect that principle.”
She argued that residents would respond differently to the introduction of charging for foot passengers if it was only going to raise, for example £20,000, instead of the £400,000 calculated by officers.
Consultation approved in current form
It appeared that instead of taking on board the points being made Cllrs Hillard and Baker-Smith, members of the Executive focused on the importance of consulting with the public over whether to introduce charges for foot passengers.
The motion to consult with the public was approved by eight members, with one against and one abstention.
Image: Images of Money under CC BY 2.0
