HI Chris

Nice to hear from you !

wrote:
Adrian wrote:
We've diy-d a website, with an online e-petition (chance for you to
'diy' something!) which is part of a campaign to focus attention on the
problems caused by the loss of the ferry and bring pressure to bear on
those people who can do something about it to get the service reinstated.

Apologies for the bandwidth - but if you'd care to drop along to

www.bringbacktheswanseacorkferry.com

and add your support to our e-petition then we'd be most grateful !

I'll quite happily support it but I don't think there's a lot of hope.

Ah well - we can but hope !

Ferries are generally an endangered species. Many of the 'neatest'
routes for us (in East Anglia) to mainland Europe have gone. There's
no longer a Felixstowe-Zeebrugge ferry, the Harwich-Hook of Holland
route has been effectively downgraded by the loss of the high speed
ferry. There also used to be a ro-ro service to Poland, that went
quite a while ago.

I think Speedferries has invigorated the short cross channel routes
but any routes that take more than an hour or two are dying out.

Thing is - this particular route is a bit 'special'.
Roads out here in the south-west of Ireland are (by UK standards) pretty
awful - so even quite short distances can take much longer than they
would in the UK.

Because of this, people (tourists, holiday homers and folks visting
relatives) heading for West Cork and Kerry are faced with four or five
hours 'extra' driving time - which is a rotten way to start & end your
holiday. Because of this, people are choosing to just go somewhere else
- which is really casing major problems for the local holiday industry.

Taking the old Swansea-Cork ferry meant that you could travel overnight
(cabin if you wanted) and arrive in Ireland refreshed and ready to enjoy
the rest of your holiday...

There's a bigger issue here, as well. There's someting odd about a ferry
company that sells its only boat before securing a replacement - and
then takes another 18 months to _not_ replace the boat. Whether such a
situation should be allowed to continue..? - given the knock-on effect
on local tourism & industry... I'm not a fan of nationalisation, but
when the failure of a private organisation to deliver has such an impact
then maybe it's the right way to go ??

All e-signatures are appreciated !

Thanks
Adrian