It’d been raining all morning, but luckily stopped mid-afternoon on Saturday, when around 150 residents set off from Co-op in Cowes to march in protest at the Isle of Wight council’s proposed introduction of a 50p each way fare for foot passengers and cyclists over 18 on the floating bridge at Cowes.
Increased costs for council
A little earlier, a group of pensioners set off on their protest, making use of their free bus passes to travel from East Cowes to Cowes via Newport.
As you’ll see from the photos below, they say that if foot passenger fares are introduced, they’ll use their free bus pass to make the journey via bus instead.
Protesters were keen to highlight that if the new fares are introduced and pensioners use that route instead of walking and paying 50p each way, it’ll actually cost the council much more than they estimate the new fares will raise as additional income. They say it’ll cost the council £13.16 per pensioner.
The public consultation
The theme of Halloween was chosen as the public consultation closes on 31st October.
Residents have argued the consultation is biased. When first launched it didn’t include the question, “should the council charge foot passengers?”
This has now been added to the survey questionnaire, but the other questions are posed as if introducing charges is a given.
You still have time to add your opinion on whether new fares should be introduced by completing the survey on the council’s Website.
Video and photo gallery
Our thanks to Christian Beasley for sharing his video and some photos from the protest. Thanks, as ever, to Allan Marsh for sharing his photos too.
Click on images to see larger versions
Image: © With kind permission of Christian Beasley
