Lymington Society - Disclaimer: This transcript is a best efforts attempt to capture verbatim the words of the participants at the meeting. There may be errors in the transcription process, for which we apologise. However, every care was taken to minimise such errors. Thanks to Lymington Society members for help with this transcription, in particular Rose Tainsh who spent many hours listening intently to the tape recorder, and was responsible for the majority of the content.

Transcript of meeting regarding the new ferries proposed by Wightlink.

Chairman's opening remarks

Ladies and gentlemen can I welcome all of you to this public meeting.

The meeting is hosted by the Lymington Society whose primary obligation is to its members however because of the wide public interest in the issue being discussed tonight it is open to the public in general

This meeting is the third public meeting which the Society has held and I hope I can say is that the previous two meetings were considered to be successful in providing a forum for a wider knowledge and understanding of the problems, firstly in relation to the Webbs Site development and secondly in relation to the building of flats in the Town.  In the case of the meeting regarding the flats it led on to the Society being asked to make a submission to the New Forest District Council which resulted in Resolutions being passed by the Council which significantly limited the grant of planning permission is in relation to flats.

The Society like to co-operate closely with the Town Council but we can provide a forum for debate which is not constrained by the Town Council's procedures which have to be more strictly controlled.  I am very glad some Town Council Members are here tonight and we have been happy to move the meeting to avoid a clash with a formal town council meeting.

Whilst the Society is mainly concerned with the built environment of Lymington it is also concerned with all environmental aspects, particularly those which may have a damaging effect on the Town.

The river is one of if not the most important features of the Town.  Jean Chitty entitled her book on the river as The River within Us. The ferry service to the Isle of Wight dates back into the 19th century and it provides a lifeline to those in West Wight to be able to reach the mainland coupled with the branch line connection. 

Why has this meeting being called.  For some time there have been rumblings in the Town about the new ferries.  Wightlink had publicised their proposals, but possibly in a way in which only ferry users and staff and close consultees would have been aware of.  As often with these situations, whatever the intentions, the public come to know of the proposals at a later stage and become concerned. 

What at first glance may have appeared to be a proposal for ferries which have only an additional marginal impact on the River, then appeared to the public to be ferries with her a much greater profile than the existing ferries, both as to size above the water and displacement below the water.

Everyone has used the ferries and no doubt consider themselves experts in ferry operation and navigation from their viewpoints from the ferry deck and their observation of the ferries wash.  Also there are an experienced a body of people who sail in the river and have to deal with the ferries when navigating dinghies or other craft.

The ferry company, Wightlink, could therefore not be in a more exposed position to be criticised as to the introduction of new ferries by people who consider themselves well qualified to judge. 

The comments in the letter pages of the local newspapers and the general concern in the yacht clubs and the Town became so insistent that the Society had in mind to call public meeting at a suitable point.

I will say that that point was triggered for me, when I saw the report in the paper that not only was a meeting, to be held between Wightlink and the Royal Lymington Yacht Club, to be in private, but no report will be given to the press.  In addition the existing consultants report on the effect of the ferries was still being kept confidential. 

Shortly after that meeting Wightlink published the Consultants Report which is available for all to read, and in the run-up to this meeting Wightlink have started to put their case over rather more fully for the benefit of the public.

Indeed Wightlink's argument is that the new ferries are not an exercise in greater traffic and maximising profits, but in bringing the standard of the ferries up to modern standards to take account of all the health and safety issues that now need to be considered.

Wightlink have also raised the stakes in this debate by suggesting recently in a newspaper interview that if they are not able to complete their plans to introduce larger ferries, they may have to withdraw their service between Lymington Yarmouth.  I have to say, knowing the sort of people who live in Lymington and use the river that that is a threat which is possibly more likely to provoke the opponents rather than bring them to heel.

What of the checks and balances that the public expect to be applied to such a proposal in this day and age.  No one would be able to build a bigger building on land without the local planning authority keeping very close control.  How therefore can one build a much bigger ship and navigate it up a narrow waterway without a lot of permissions and approvals.

Perhaps because we are dealing with something as historic and well-established as seafaring and shipping and harbours, the legal position is not entirely clear.  It seems to be an initial view amongst the various consulting parties such as the Harbour Commissioners and English Nature and possibly the local authority that they did not need to take any action, and secondly now the public's concern has been shown to them them, that possibly the law does not allow them to have any control.

When I was first involved in this I asked to know what were the permissions that were required and what representations could be made by people who were concerned.

At this stage we only have a general view of that and whilst lawyers advice is being taken by various parties, I don't think the public have a clear view as to what the legal position is so far as these protections are concerned.  It may be that we shall have a clearer idea by the end of this meeting.

The form of the meeting is that I will be followed by Don MacKenzie who has done a lot of the ground work, drilling down to establish the position of various parties and the status of the consultations that have taken place, and he will provide a more detailed report on what he and other members of the Society have done in liaising with those concerned.

We are very glad that Wightlink has come to this meeting to present their case for the larger ferries.  If it is any consolation to them I can say that I think both the developers of the Webb Site and The New Forest District Council, which were in the hotseat at the previous meetings, both felt that the meetings had been beneficial to them and created a greater understanding of their positions, whether or not they ended up modifying their positions as a result of the meeting.

There are then various consulting parties who will be asked to provide a short presentation of their situation and I believe these include the Royal Lymington Yacht Club.

There is then an informal group which has come together calling itself the River Users Group and I understand that some of their members will provide a short presentation on various different aspects of their concern.

I then propose to open the meeting up to questions from the floor to any of the speakers and it may be that there are questions of the consulting organisations as to their original stance and current stance to the proposals as well as to Wightlink about the proposals themselves.  Wightlink and the consulting parties have all had an opportunity to discuss these matters between themselves but the public has not been involved and it is the public who this meeting is intended to inform.

There are various aspects of concern and I would like to try to get the questions to follow the various subjects.

There is obviously one set of questions about the increased size of the ferries themselves, another set of questions on the impact on navigation, another set on the impact on the marshes and the wildlife, another on the question of increased traffic and so on.  So if you could help me by following one subject with a similar question I would be grateful.

Please give every speaker a fair hearing.  I will ensure you do.  If there are any questions in between the speakers as to factual matters, then if I think it is helpful I will allow them to be put, but I would like the general dialogue and exchange of questions to be left at the end of the meeting.

I now pass you over to Donald MacKenzie.

EXTRACT FROM POWERPOINT PRESENTATION BY DONALD MACKENZIE

Date: 5 Jun 2006    "Isle of Wight Today"

“£10M Boost as Isle of Wight gets new ferries”

“The new ships will be able to carry more vehicles and passengers but will be similar in overall size to the existing 30-year-old Cenwulf, Cenred and Caedmon, two of which will be replaced”.

Discussions Prior to the Announcement

“Since 2005 Solent Protection Society has taken an active interest in Wightlink’s plans for replacement ferries on the Lymington-Yarmouth service.”

How “Similar in size” are they?

Reassurances on  size accepted at first

Disquiet started to grow over actual size

• R Class 76% heavier than C Class (displacement)
• Lateral windage 84 % larger
• 4 Metres Longer
• Cargo capacity  up from130 tonnes to 360 tonnes
• Engine Power 194% greater

"BOW ON” COMPARISON

SIDE VIEW OF EXISTING FERRY

PHOTOMONTAGE OF SIDE VIEW OF PROPOSED  FERRY

SIDE PROFILE

STATISTICS

Ferries Need to be Replaced

• The Isle of Wight needs secure links
• C Class ferries Over 30 years Old
• Investment has paid for New Ferries
• “Modest increase in Capacity”
• Reasonable for any company to increase revenue –that’s how capitalism works

Effect on Lymington

Is the price to be paid by Lymington too high?

Society Members raised Possible Concerns:

• Effect on the Environment
• Effect on other River Users
• Effect on Economy of the town

Extracts from the Eagle Lyon Pope Navigational Review

"Given the considerable increase in displacement, block co-efficient, and windage area of the R Class, it is unavoidable that – for a given channel geometry, water depth and vessel speed – the R Class will have increased adverse effects of wash, drawdown and possibly surge.

6. The only way that this can be avoided is by:

• Building the new ferries in the same hull formation as the existing C Class vessels
• Deepening and/or widening the Lymington channels
• Reducing the speed of operation of the new R Class within they regard key the inside door shut we will need to skewed post code will try Lymington River
• Some combination of the above"

The Effect of Increased Windage (ELP Report)

"The increased windage area of the R Class ferries will have to be handled by a combination of:

• Maintaining vessel alignment within the channel by use of the greater thrust available, and
• Setting a course to counter the wind.

In both cases, the effect will be to impart energy on to the channel banks with resultant bank erosion, again most noticeably at low water."

ELP Conclusions

“It is an unwelcome but inescapable fact that - for a given channel geometry and speed -the R Class ferries will have a greater adverse hydrodynamic impact than the existing C Class vessels.

It is simply not possible to change the underwater form and expect the effects listed in 6.1.2 to remain the same”

Ferry speed

Lymington Harbour Commissioners advise that ferry speed is an occasional problem with the existing C Class – hence their concerns regarding the R Class. The problem is (unsurprisingly) at low water, and is partly supported by anecdotal accounts of ferry speed in excess of the 6 knot and 4 knot limits.

Studies so far are superficial

“It would appear from the above that the proposed R-Class could have an adverse impact on channel erosion. With the proposed increase in displacement, it is difficult to see any other outcome, even at the superficial level of investigation used in this study.”

Response of Local Bodies

Natural England:

"We understand that the ferries are more or less the same size. As there is no physical work being carried out this is not a “Plan or Project” and as such we cannot intervene”

The National Park Authority

"We understand the ferries are more or less the same size and have more or less the same capacity as the current ferries and therefore we see no reason to object"

New Forest District Council

"The new ferries do not require any planning consent and we do not intend to object."

Hampshire C.C. Highways

"Natural England have said that this does not constitute a “Plan or a Project” and so we have no power to intervene. The road system is adequate to cope with any change in vehicles and no permission is needed"

The Society Lobbied Natural England

“We would therefore request that Natural England should re-examine this proposal, not from the extremely narrow test as to whether physical development needs to take place in Lymington to enable this development to go ahead, which we think is a totally inappropriate test to use but rather from the point in view of the more obvious one of the actual physical harm which could be caused to the Hurst Castle and Lymington River SSSI.”

“It would seem very strange to citizens in this area and beyond if Natural England decided not to fully investigate this possibly damaging proposal on the basis of what many might be seen by many as a loophole rather than on the rather more obvious test of whether actual physical and environmental harm could be caused to the area.”

Natural England’s Response                       (October 03, 2007)

“Natural England has formally objected to Wightlink's current licence application to the Marine & Fisheries Agency, as we believe these shoreside works are an essential part of the whole proposal to run larger ferries between Lymington and Yarmouth. We are urging MFA, as part of their considerations to undertake an 'Appropriate Assessment', under the Natural Habitats Regulations 1994 to determine the scale of the ferry's impact on the internationally important wildlife sites along Lymington River Estuary, its mudflats and saltmarsh habitats”. 

The Environment Agency (29/08/07)

“Although we have no objection in principle to the proposed works for the berthing of new vessels it is our understanding that the proposed larger vessels associated with these amended structures will result in an 80% increase in displaced water.  We have grave concerns that the displacement of water will exacerbate the erosion of Priority Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) habitats (saltmarsh and mudflat) which are acting as a natural coastal defence on the entrance to Lymington Harbour”

“The Environment Agency is also of the opinion that the displacement of water will cause erosion to the features of interest associated with the Solent Maritime SAC and Solent & Southampton Water SPA/Ramsar, and an appropriate assessment should be undertaken”

Current Situation

Natural England and the Environment Agency have formally objected to the Marine and Fisheries Agency and asked for a full assessment on Environmental grounds.

The Royal Yachting Association has also objected to the Marine and Fisheries Agency on the grounds of interference with Recreational Boating activities.

Lymington Harbour Commissioners will organise Sea Trials if Environmental Assessment gives the go-ahead.

Coping with the New Ferries.

Reduced Speeds

“The live tests would essentially involve running the ferries at a range of speeds and tide heights in order to note the hydrodynamic effects. Whilst it is not possible to properly estimate the outcome of that process, a considered opinion from this report’s author is as follows:”

Other Possible concerns

Effect on the Economy

Lymington has 1200 mooring spaces. Boating is reported to earn the Town £100M. If sailing in the river becomes more intimidating due to larger, ever present ferries, a tipping point may come where boat owners simply move away.

Much to Consider

We welcome our esteemed speakers from both sides of this debate and look forward to what they and the audience have to say.

Thank you                          Dr. Don Mackenzie Society Spokesman

ANDREW WILLSON CHIEF EXECUTIVE WIGHTLINK FERRIES

Thank you very much for the invitation to come to talk to you all about the new ferries for the Lymington to Yarmouth service and to explain to you all the problems that we have with that service with the existing ferries and the solution that we are applying to secure the service for the future.

There has obviously been a certain debate going on in the run up to this meeting over the past weeks and I have been following that debate and participating in that debate as well and it seems to me that there are a number of sort of questions that underlying the whole essence of the issue and I thought it would be useful if I used those questions as the format for the presentation this evening in terms of trying to answer those questions from the Wight link perspective.

Those questions are: are new ferries necessary? Is the ferry service actually necessary? What is in it for Wightlink? Is the design of the new ferries actually optimal? What actually are the facts for the new ferries? The likely impact of the new ferries operating on the service and finally: what is the way forward from here?

For the first question: Are new ferries necessary?  Well I think you already actually heard this evening yes they are old they’re  actually 34 years old, they’ll be 35 years old and they’re replaced next year and they do not comply with current regulations.  They are uneconomic for us to maintain its simply a case that we spend more than twice their market value each year in maintaining them  Putting that into perspective I mean if you have a car that’s only worth a couple of thousand pounds and you are spending four thousand pounds just to get it through its MOT its just not economic. 

They are inadequate for the current traffic that we are having to cope with, with the lack of high space availability on them, they are incapable of modification or rebuild either to bring them up to current regulations or indeed to get any additional capacity on to the. They do not offer the desired customer experience that we want our customers to have in this modern day of travel, ferries that were built 34 years ago. So in fact not to replace them is not an option.

Just to pick up on a point actually as regards to the comment that has been made that is whether Wight link would actually withdraw from the service, those have been inaccurately quoted. I have never made such a threat and indeed no member of Wightlink staff has made such a threat.  We are absolutely 100% committed to this service but it is just a simple fact that unless we do replace the old ferries, then they cannot continue the service we need new ferries obviously to carry on the service for the foreseeable future.

So indeed is a ferry service actually necessary? For some, it is obviously not. I fully appreciate that there are many people that don’t use the ferry service and indeed don’t wish it to be there. But for the 1.35 million passengers who travel each year on the route then clearly I think the answer would be yes the ferry service is essential. What are the benefits of having the ferry service? Well it does make a significant contribution to the prosperity of local communities, whether that be Lymington, other communities in the New Forest area or indeed on the Isle of Wight. It provides direct employment for up to 200 people. West Wight and Yarmouth are dependent on it for their everyday needs. It supports local tourism that’s both in the New Forest and also on the Island. And it supports the heritage rail service to Lymington.  So in effect we decide and agree that the ferry service is necessary then new ferries are essential.

What is in it for Wightlink? Well we simply have a case here where the route profitability of the service has actually dropped to 50% of its 1999 levels. I picked 1999 because that was its peak and   we are now at 50% of that level indeed we are back at the level of profitability that was last experienced back in 1991. This is a bit of a technical term: RORCE It stands for “Return On Replacement Capital Employed”. What it is demonstrating is that if we make the investment in new ferries, then the return on that capital employed will actually be less than 4%. That’s below the current cost of debt.  It is basically me asking somebody would you like to put your money into a business and only get less than 4% return on it?  In fact you would quite clearly say to me that you are better of leaving your money in the bank. But that is the situation that we are faced with here, so without significant improvement on the route, the service is actually not a sustainable investment proposition on a stand-alone basis.

What the new ferries offer us is reduced maintenance costs, fuel efficiency, operational flexibility, to actually be able to handle the traffic that actually wants to utilise the route as it is today and we get the modest growth potential out of it as well, with the extra capacity of a further 15 cars. What that leads up to is a viable service. So by investing in new ferries we are actually securing the future of the route for at least the lifecycle of the new ferries whatever that may well be but certainly the next 20 to 25 years. So in looking at the new ferries this is the design optimal.

When we set out on this process we had a number of objectives that we needed to satisfy. Firstly, the ferries had to be able to navigate the river. We wanted to enhance customer experience. We wanted to get operational efficiency out of the new ferries and we wanted get some additional capacity. 

So, in looking at the new ferries, have we achieved these objectives?  The answer on all of them is actually yes or as and when they are introduced yes we will achieve those objectives such that there will be no dredging required for the vessels to navigate the river. The customer experience: we shall have improved lounges, full disability access, lifts on board as well as disabled toilets and an enhanced customer experience and crew facilities. We’ll get operational efficiency through high space flexibility which means that the traffic that currently want to travel will be able to travel simply and we get all manner of caravans, motor homes cars with bikes on top as well which currently we find it very difficult to cope with at peak times. With these new ferries we’ll have more flexibility to be able to manage all of that.  And we’ll get the additional capacity through an extra 15 cars that the new ferries will be able to accommodate on their decks.

So what are the actual facts about the new ferries? This is an exploded diagram of one of the new ferries.  The principal differences to the existing C class ferries are they’re four metres longer. That is roughly the size of a small family car. They are less than one metre wider they will actually have a reduced operational draft by virtue of the fact that they will require to run with their full dead weight capability. The upper car deck which is actually the equivalent of the existing mezzanine deck on the current ferries if any of you are familiar with that, that gets lifted higher into the up passenger accommodation which gives us that high space flexibility underneath.  Passenger accommodation then gets wrapped around the car deck. That’s actually an added advantage for disabled passengers who can be accommodated on that particular deck and are then able to walk straight out  into the passenger lounge. We get the extra capacity through the installation now of a slide/side? round mezzanine deck that’s over I think its on the left hand side of the diagram which can take about ten cars or so.

The vessel has four engines but for normal running it will actually only require to utilise three of those engines.  That is built in full redundancy into all of the equipment on the ferries such that that will not be required all of the time.  And the propeller units will be based on the centre line and this gives us an optimal hull design as compared to the existing ferry where the propellers are actually situated on the side of the hull. I think you have probably already seen this table this evening. I think Don brought this up in HIS presentation. I am not going to talk through all of that. Its actually in a little leaflet that is going round, as well.  Other than perhaps to draw your attention to the two lines that are highlighted in red which are the “expected operational displacement” and the “expected operational draft”. If you look there.  The new ferries the R class 1380 tonnes versus 850 tonnes for the C class. For the draft we would expect it to run at around 2.12 metres as compared to 2.28 metres so there is actually a 16 cm reduction in the operational draft.

These are side elevation drawings of the existing ferry at the top as compared to the new ferry underneath.  These are exactly to scale I think one or two of the others that have been going around are a in actual fact a little bit exaggerated These are exactly to scale Carrying on – sorry -  with the facts.

I fully recognise that one of the biggest areas of debate has been in relation to the displacement of the new ferries and really it needs explanation as to why that comes about. The existing C class ferry has displacement of 850 tonnes fully loaded If we were to try to build a new C class ferry today i.e. to stick to exactly the same dimensions with exactly the same car capacity it would actually have to have a slightly different hull formation because it would weigh approximately something around about 1200 tonnes rather than the 850 tonnes of the old ferry and that comes about because of current build regulations that actually require a far higher degree of damage stability for a vessel that is built today as compared to one that was built back in 1973.

So about 350 tonnes increase in displacement actually arises by default. There is simply nothing we can do about that. When we then actually move through to the new ferry the maximum displacement is 1495 tonnes but in effect it will run at 1380 tonnes maximum on an operational basis on this route. Sorry? That is an increase of 180 tonnes and effectively that is attributable to the increased capacity of the vessel for 15 cars.

So what is the likely impact of the new ferries?  Conditions:  they will be very much cleaner. The engines that are being specified meet all EU standards. Those of the old ferries do not.  Fuel efficiency will be much improved As I’ve said:  in normal operating conditions will only need to run on three engines The engines that are being specified will be capable of being shut down whilst the vessel is in berth and the vessel is in berth actually for one third of its operational time so that’s a third of the saving in fuel. For the current vessels as a matter of fact, the engines have to be kept running whilst the vessel is in berth.

Wash: Well we fully expect there to be no greater wash generated by the new ferries. What we’ve done here is to undertake or we’ve had undertaken for us some computational fluid dynamic modelling.  This is a picture of the hull moving though the water at 11.5 knots The red and dark blue are actually waves of up to half a metre in amplitude The light blue and yellow are waves up to 25 cms in amplitude and the green is essentially calm water around the hull as it moves through the water. This is what it would look like if the speed is reduced to 8 knots with effectively the wave profile being reduced down to no more than 25 cms. And this is what it would look like at 6 knots with relatively calm water around the hull. Now this has been undertaken independently of the tank testing that we carried out at the end of 2006 but it supports the findings of the tank testing. Just to show you that these are pictures of the model of the hull of the new ferry actually  being tested through the water.  This is at 12 knots, that’s pretty much the equivalent of the 11.5 knots cfd (i.e. computational fluid dynamic) diagram and you can see the wave profile around that hull.  This is reducing the speed down to 6 knots with very little wave generation only a few ripples in the water and that is the speed at 4 knots with essentially calm water around the hull as its moving through the tank.

Carry on with “Likely Impacts”: the salt marshes. Well we do not believe there will be any material effects on the salt marshes over and above that of the existing C class ferries We did have undertaken for us in the early part of this year an environmental appraisal and the conclusion of that was that the new ferries would have little or no material adverse impact on the environment that could not be mitigated through the controlled use of speed. 

We have actually followed that up with a further or we have commissioned a further study by Giffords and they have reviewed all of the previous studies undertaken on salt marsh erosion over the last 10 to 15 years or so.  That is actually available on our website Its only just gone onto there. We’ve just recently had it undertaken. The conclusion of that really is that of all of the studies that have been undertaken, not ONE actually implicates either ferry wash or indeed the wash from any other vessel as a contributory factor to salt marsh erosion In fact the conclusion of ALL of  them is that salt marsh erosion is due to natural causes, whether that be the rising sea levels, storminess from increased wave action or whatever It is not being put down to ferry wash or any other vessel wash.

Traffic growth:  it will be cars not freight, I appreciate that there is a concern that there could be increased freight traffic coming through Lymington that simply will not be the case It is NOT a route that is preferred by the commercial vehicle operators. If it were they would be using it now because there is capacity available and if we wanted to do so, we could price the route to try and attract that traffic to come down here now but we don’t want to do that we accommodate the majority of that traffic on our Portsmouth/Fishbourne service and it simply would not want to come this way anyway. With extra cars we actually think there will not be much in the way of increased traffic congestion in fact there is an argument to say it could be improved. With the operational efficiency of the new vessels we will be looking to clear the terminals that much quicker to get the traffic off of the roads.

For other river users, I do fully understand and appreciate that there are many concerns about the new ferries from other river users and we have given you assurances right the way throughout that we want to work with all of those users to ensure that when the new ferries are introduced there will be no overall adverse impact on them.  And we are fully committed to doing that in terms of working whoever has an interest in these new ferries to ensure that we can actually maintain the balance of river use.

So what is the way forward?  Well I think its already been mentioned again earlier that the Lymington Harbour Commission are to undertake further risk assessments. Those will identify potential operational issues in relation to the new ferries which we will then seek to redress through trials to determine appropriate operational guidelines and parameters for the vessels in the river.

That’s it. Thank you very much for listening to me. Just to sort of  bring you back:  in effect, I hope you will appreciate that we are in a position here where we simply have no option other than to replace the vessels. We try to look at what the best solution is for that from all perspectives and we think we have that solution with the new ferries that will be introduced next year. Thank you.

Clive Sutton

Thank you very much Mr Willson.  I am very glad you gave him that round of applause, which he was anticipating at the beginning of his speech…. Now we are running over time as ever.  I don’t know who wrote the times down here! We’re running over time, quarter of an hour over time. We may make it up but I think you are all so interested in this, that no-one is going to be too worried about running over at bit.  The doors are wide open at the back if anyone gets bored and needs to go…. The usual technical glitches while we change from one power-point presentation to another.

Now may I introduce Peter Griffiths, the new Chairman of the Harbour Commission who will present the Harbour Commission’s point-of-view.  Peter…

(APPLAUSE)

PETER GRIFFITHS

Good evening everybody.  Thank you all for coming along this evening and, well, giving me the chance to come along and give you the position as we see it from the Harbour Commissioners.  I thought it might be worthwhile at first just to explain who the Harbour Commissioners are.  I know a lot of you have been here a long time but it is surprising sometimes how few people really understand what we’re about.

Now, the Harbour Commissioners are usually nine volunteers.  We don’t get paid anything and we are appointed in accordance with a rather long-sounding thing The Lymington Harbour Revision Constitution Order, which came out in 2002 from The Department of Transport We are selected to have a variety of experience in things to do with harbours: recreational  financial management, environmental matters, area operations, commercial fishing, safety etc.  We are not per se representatives of those interests though.  We are there as individuals with background and experience.

Individual interests are represented on the Harbour Advisory Group who actually have the opportunity to vet what we’re doing, see what we’re up to, come to us with ideas and suggestions. And then we also appoint a full-time Chief Executive who is also an ex officio Commissioner and also a Chairman from the nine, that is myself. So that’s what we’re about and how we’re constituted.

Right.  We have fundamental objectives as The Commission and we have to manage the harbour as what is called a Trust Port under various bits of legislation going back to 1847.  We have to do this economically.  We have to do it by protecting the environment, preserving the character of the area and maximising safe use and enjoyment. These are our objectives and that is what we are attempting to do. To do this, as I say we have duties which are enshrined in law.  The duties apply to 99% of all UK Harbour Commissions not just to Lymington. 

One duty is the open port duty, which means that we have to manage a port, to keep it open for any vessel that can safely navigate therein.

We have a conservation duty, to keep the port fit for purpose, in other words we’ve got to keep it dredged, we’ve got to keep the navigational marks up to scratch, we’ve got to keep the pontoons safe, and the quays safe, all those sort of things. 

And then we have an environmental duty, we have to take regard of the environment in all the actions we take to run the port

And we have a safety duty

We have powers, which are given to us by the Secretary of State to put byelaws in place.  These byelaws are there to regulate safety, to enforce environmental measures and they are to regulate and not to prohibit access.  The Harbour Master, who is appointed by The Commission to carry out the Commission’s policies, he has what is known of powers of specific direction which means that at a given time at any point during the operation he can give specific directions to a vessel on a one-off basis on grounds of safety but he can not make general directions which say that a particular vessel or vessels cannot do this that or the other activity. Across the whole of the harbour, like the rest of the offshore world it is regulated by the International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea, so they hold sway in the harbour as well of course as ourselves.

Just to give you some idea of the balance of the many users that we have there are the three ferries which at 1.3m+ passengers a year, we have sixteen hundred berths in total overall in the river, this has grown quite significantly over the past 30, 40 years with the second marina coming in and thus finding new spaces to put in the ever increasing number of people on our waiting list.  You might be surprised to know that we get nine thousand or more visiting boats every year. 

We also have twenty commercial fishermen permanently moored in the river.  We did a calculation the other day which suggested that we have than five thousand launches over the slipway every year, with dinghies and ribs and all the people from the sailing clubs, and of course the two yacht clubs, the fishing club, the rowing club and Sailability.

OK. So what is our position on the new ferries? Well, we accept that it is time for replacement on safety and pollution grounds.  Now we have expressed our reservations on the new designs’ compatibility with the river… and we did this way back last year when they were first mooted.  As an “open port” we cannot prevent their introduction we make this clear.  I know it surprises some people to hear this but as I said earlier we have a duty to maintain the port available to all, who have free right of access.  We will however regulate to minimise the impact of any vessel on other users. That very much includes the ferries.  We cannot guarantee that there will be no impact on the others users, but we are striving to keep it to an absolute minimum and we can make it quite clear and we have done to Wightlink from the beginning that the main risk reduction measures will fall for Wightlink and not to other users.  What has been said earlier on about independent risk assessments and strategies and all that sort of thing, I m just going to run you very briefly through what we as The Commission are doing independently of Wightlink and of anybody else, to carry out what we consider as appropriate assessment of the risks and to arrive at what we will consider to be the appropriate operating parameters for the vessels.

The primary method of assessment at the end will be through live sea trials and these will take place before operational service start but we are starting now to do what we call a risk desk-based study based on some of the information that is available in the reports.  In order to achieve all of this we are going to engage an expert marine river consultant to assist in the process and the river users are also being consulted at the moment regarding the terms of reference for this work so that some of you who have an interest should have an opportunity to make sure that your point of view is heard. 

The terms as they stand at the moment are to - this is what the consultant will do for us – they will review and validate what we call the Eagle Lion Pope Report which is the report which we asked Wightlink to commission in the first instance.  We want to get an independent review of that to make sure that it makes sense to a second set of experts.  We are going to risk assess all of the river activities and all of the river user groups who will have an input into that process, who will be consulted and have the opportunity of talking to the consultant to put their point of view and explain the activities that they wish to carry on in the river, have been carrying on in the river so that we can take account of all those when finding out what would be the most appropriate operating parameters for the ferry.

After that, the consultant will propose what he considers to be reasonable mitigation measures, in other words what the operating parameters should be.  Obviously, a lot has been said about speed; that is one thing that will come in to it.  He will also review all the proposals that were made before the sea trials to make sure that we are measuring during these trials all those activities which are appropriate, making sure we are measuring the effective displacement of the wash, the wave height, the wave shape, and the effect on the banks etc.  And then in conjunction with ourselves, they are going actually to source the equipment to make these measurements and manage the sea trials for us.  And then they will finalise the risk assessment and any control measures as and when we have got all the data to analyse and to see exactly what is necessary.

So summarising, our position is that we are the custodians of river usage. If you like we are “the referee”.  We don’t, we are not on anybody’s side; we are here to manage the situation. We are neither in favour nor against the ferries. We are just managing the situation. All the work we do will be transparent to everybody; we are not going to be doing anything behind closed doors.  The reports will all be published, so the results will be available for all and we aim to minimise as I said before impact for all the users but we cannot guarantee “no impact” because we have a duty to make the port open.

Just before I finish, a few words about what I call the bigger picture.  Now this is nothing to do with ferries, this is caused by winter storms. We are losing our harbour. There is no doubt about that. Every winter storm, the marsh recedes.   We have got a plan about what to do about it but we need to persuade Natural England that they need to give us permission to put in some breakwaters.  And we need your help in this. In the next two or three weeks we will be circulating leaflets everywhere, to everybody explaining the situation in detail and asking for you to write to Natural England on our behalf.  I’ll just give you an idea of what we are talking about.  (POINTING AT SLIDE) That is the river at the moment or actually in 2005.  You can see the marshes. You can see the bend in the channel quite clearly.  (NEXT SLIDE) That is the river in 2040.  This is based on projections by the New Forest District Council Coastal Defence team.  This is not our information.  It is information they have been putting together to formulate their own personal defence plans so if nothing is done, effectively by 2040, there will be no harbour.  (NEXT SLIDE) That is what we want to do.  We want to put in two breakwaters, which will save about twelve acres of the salt marshes and also protect the river so that you will have a river going well on into the future for the prosperity of tomorrow, for the benefit of others.  I just wanted to bring that to your attention now.  There will be a lot more coming about that in the next few weeks but I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss.  (LAUGHTER) On that note, I hopefully will help to catch up time a bit and thank you very much

(APPLAUSE)

CLIVE SUTTON:

Thank you very much Mr Griffiths.  We are very pleased to be able to assist you in publicising the needs of the harbour for saving the harbour.

May I introduce Geoff Holmes, of the Royal Lymington Yacht Club.

GEOFF HOLMES

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you everybody.  Thank you very much for that. I have been asked:  “What do we want to achieve by objecting to the new ferries?”  The answer is simple.  We want our racing and sailing activities at the Club to be no worse off than they are now. 

We welcomed Wightlink’s assurance, given in January, that that would be so but as the time went on, our concerns grew that their assurance, though well meant, might not be delivered.  While our priority is sailing we are concerned about the environmental impact caused by increased engine thrust and displacement and its effects on the river bed and the banks because Natural England and the Environment Agency are taking an active interest and the Solent Protection Society is fully aware, we feel that the environmental issues are best dealt with by others.

So what about the sailing? Our community training Wednesday Junior Sailing programme could be affected by the ferry moving slower through the training area, reducing the amount of time that can be given to proper training.  Small craft in the vicinity of a slower moving ferry could suffer from the increased wind shadow and being exposed to increased side thrust to keep stationary in high winds.  The regulations covering sailing and racing in the river could be significantly tightened as a result of the new ferries according to advice from BNTC a highly respected consultancy with experience in port operations.  Now the Lymington Harbour Commissioners have accepted that our concerns need investigating. As you have already heard the Commissioners study on the impact of the new ferries on the users of the river - something that perhaps could have been done some time ago. When the study reports in a few months time it will either validate our concerns, or dispel them, and from our point of view there is little more to be said until that report publishes its findings. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

CLIVE SUTTON:

Thank you Mr Holmes. Now we move on to the personal speakers.  I think the first one is Chris Baldrick

(APPLAUSE)

CHRIS BALDRICK

Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen.  I come to you with an Agenda.  I have a declared interest, I am a yachtsman, I have a boat.  I first sailed out of Lymington River in the 1970s.  Although I am a member of the Yacht Club, I am not speaking on behalf of the Yacht Club this evening.  I am speaking to you as an individual who is concerned about what is happening. 

I am concerned, as Geoff Holmes has just said that we have just gone through a risk assessment in this river and we have come up with a set of rules, regulations, call it what you will to cope with racing and sailing on the river with the existing ferries. Now I have heard Mr Willson say that he doesn’t think the new ferries will have any impact.  I have also heard the Harbour Commission say that they can’t guarantee that.  I have also heard the Harbour Commission say that we are going to have a new risk assessment.  So I think it is pretty inevitable that with a larger ferry, plus greater hazard, they’re will be greater risk, there will be some form of restriction being placed.  

However, having heard all of this, I would very much like from the Harbour Commission a more forceful statement, not that they will try to minimise the impact on other users but that they will hold Wightlink to their commitment that there will be NO impact on other users.

(“HEAR, HEAR”.  APPLAUSE)

I only have one other point to make very briefly, as we are running out of time and what I am going to say I think has probably been said already but Id like to say it in my own way.  I too have read the Reports and I have read the ELP Report.  If you look carefully at the Reports, certainly the one that I have read, I am not aware of a more recent one, the one that I have read the conclusion is basically saying “it is considered”, everything is a “consideration”.  It is basically an opinion, it is an expert’s opinion, the people are experts but they’re opinions, which I can’t see are actually based on evidence. 

In fact, forgive me if I am wrong here but I think the word “evidence” only appears once in the whole thing, and it was actually repeated by Mr Willson when he came to the Royal Lymington Yacht Club and I paraphrase here but basically it says that there is no evidence that the current ferries contribute to the river bank erosion.  Now “no evidence” is NOT a good basis for an argument for making a decision.  Let me illustrate very briefly. 

The tobacco industry for thirty years said there was no evidence of any link between smoking and cancer.  Excuse me!  “No evidence” is not a good basis.  Now I know that they’re going to do sea trials and I know that the argument is that sea trials will throw up the evidence and I don’t want to tar Wightlink with the tobacco industry brush but can I just explain my analogy a little bit to illustrate a lesson of history.  Once the evidence was found, it took another fifteen years before the Government could even ban advertising tobacco.  It took a further ten years or so before they actually banned smoking in a public area like this.  The point I am trying to make is that once something is introduced and established, it takes a long time to rectify it, to put things right.

(HEAR, HEAR! APPLAUSE)

Our river does not have another twenty-five years to go as we have seen and we do not want to speed that process up.  So, my plea is please that what we do is that we do a study before the ferries are introduced.  Please don’t tell me that it can’t be done because I have been told that the new ferries will be no worse than the old ferries. We can start doing the study now on the existing ferries. So instead of no evidence, maybe we will find that there is evidence.  And at the end of the day, and the evidence is there and you can prove to me that these are the right size ferries, I am not opposed to larger ferries I am just for the right size ferries and if these are the right sized ferries for the river then so be it.  But let’s get the evidence before they get here and not afterwards. Thank you very much.

CLIVE SUTTON

Thank you Chris.  The next speaker is Roger Wilson on Wednesday Junior Sailing with a power point presentation.

ROGER WILSON

Wednesday Junior Sailing for those who do not realise is run by the Royal Lymington Yacht Club for the last 53 years. We provide sailing tuition for 2,500 children a year for £1 a session in the Lymington River.  We also run training for about 80 to 100 children at weekends.   In both of those we are very similar to the training for children done by the Town Sailing Club and by the Sea Scouts and by Sailability. What I say about sailing will also apply to all of those organisations not just about Junior Sailing.

We are talking about what the effects of the new ferries will be on this training.  Basically we believe that there’s going to be four major effects: we’re going to have possible new safety measures, we’ve got an increased presence of the ferries in the river, we’ve got all the problems caused by that.  We took independent advice from an expert on what the possible new safety measures might be having looked at the ferries, those are what he said may have to be introduced. They will instantly change the way we use our river, they will instantly stop the training in the river, and …. If we are talking about the ferries at the moment being in the river, well up to three months ago, they were in the top, the upper reach for about 20 minutes of each hour.  We are talking about the new ferries being there for half an hour of each hour or 40 minutes of each hour.  We are talking about ferries with a much bigger windage, having to use a lot of thrust to hold themselves at slower speeds. With those ferries it is going to be really really difficult…. to teach sailing …  We believe that if you take into account before the new ferries proper risk assessment before the new ferries are brought in.  Really with those any of those safety measures …………

CLIVE  SUTTON

Thank you Roger Wilson.  Michael Derrick please, talking on displacement.

MICHAEL DERRICK

A lot of what I was going to go through tonight has been very well said by Donald.  I think one of my main concerns stems from Wightlinks rather economical with the truth aspect today and the fait accompli approach by saying that they are coming in any respect. 

(HEAR, HEAR! APPLAUSE)

It does not show much well meaning, notwithstanding the protestations made throughout.  In their public statement they weren’t very good or explicit with the details of the displacement and size.  This only came out in the reports under duress to publish the studies, which they had done, which they originally told us were much too sensitive.  Having seen them, they are sensitive because whilst one seemed to say there will be no effect,  ……… in fact as Don or somebody said, or shown they are very clear that there is an effect.  Our concerns are much greater displacement, block coefficient and thrust of the R Class. It all has the potential to increase the squat, wash and draw down.  We wont go into displacement but again Donald picked up on that.  Mr Wilson mentioned wash and he was very happy with the tank test.  I’ve been to a tank test, they're very good guys, very professional indeed. But the waves shown here are all in deep water and the waves are going to be an issue but the surge and draw down created by the added displacement and the far greater increase in block coefficient, has not been shown on here and would not if it was in a shallow water base that you can do in Holland, bit more expense but there you go.  It is not shown here at all.  What has been shown here, I’m not going to say it’s a mis-representation but it is certainly a not the whole truth.  I think that’s where I’m just going to pass on really in treating displacement.

The other thing that concerns me greatly is the stand taken by the Lymington Harbour Commissioners.  They do a bloody good job and as Peter said they are volunteering. There is no real pay – the only thing you get is criticism! Which I shall go on and do ..

LAUGHTER

One glaring, to me … If you are going to invest in some substantial investment and expect a return on it and Mr Willson clearly showed a very low return on investment notwithstanding the 4 million pretty dire  return when he bought the thing.  If you are going to invest in this and they new what the increase of displacement was because their naval architects are a very competent bunch and they will have known that all along. They did not seek to engage in any of these studies and neither did the Harbour Commissioners engage or make proper enquiries into these studies before the vessels were ordered at all.  They were ordered and now everybody is doing risk assessments.  One glaring omission that no risk assessment made with regard to all …..

( CHANGE OF TAPE) 

But they cannot protect, er, stop the vessel coming in.  Well that is a bit thick I believe because if a tanker came up and didn’t turn right at Fawley and started to turn right because he was on GPS Tom Tom or something and started to turn up Lymington River, they would have a perfect right to say “No you are not coming in”.  So somewhere there is a crossover between the stupid example, which I have just used and the more practical and discerning one, that there is a crossover between when is a vessel safe and they should allow it to enter the port and whether it is unsafe.  And unsafe under the Port Marine Safety Code, which I was going to quote but I wont.  They have an obligation to the Public to all river users and knocked just the commercial and this discussion should have taken place an offer will long time ago

HEAR, HEAR APPLAUSE

If it is the case that they knew about this some time back and the Solent Protection Society was referred to, who seemed to know about it in 2005 apparently…. it beggars belief that we are where we are tonight without Paul of this taking place some time back.  And I think it should be the case that the ferries that the Harbour Commissioners do have the right.  That they should take a stand that says the vessels are ordered, the vessels are intended to come here, but there is great ….moral sanction that they will not come here unless the risk assessment and all the studies show that they are safe for Paul users not just the commercial….

HEAR HEAR APPLAUSE

CLIVE SUTTON:

Well I think that should have been entitled “Economy with the Truth” rather than “Displacement” !  Dr Ken  Hay….  Will this be on Windage, Horsepower and Damage to River Banks or…?

Dr KEN HAY:

You make sense of the words….!  Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening Mr Chairman.   In promoting the new ferries, Wightlink have laid great store by their claim that the footprint is “not much bigger”.   I wish I could say the same about what I will call their “windprint”.  In doing that what I would like to do is to turn this on its… the overhead.

I would like to explain a few words about the “propulsion units”.   These ferries have neither propellers nor rudders and they have two very large units, which are called Voight Schneider Propulsion Units.  There are similar ones on the old ferries and on the new ferries but the radical difference which has not really been pointed out is that for some reason or another Wightlink seem to think they need three times the amount of power to put into these engines.  I wonder why. 

You can perhaps get an idea of the size of them looking at the dimensions of this unit and it could just about - its obviously off the Boyce Turbo website - it could  actually have a Wighlink notice on it. I think its about the right size The way it works we will not bother going into but basically it sucks water in one side and pushes it out the other with a sort of massive almost like a jet of water being pulled across the unit but they can make it pull from any direction and that’s how they steer the boat, they’ve got one of these at either end.  They in fact get to the point of low water very similar to existing ferries where they will virtually be scrubbing the bottom at, of, low tides. It’s also worth noticing that these types of units are unique to Wightlink in the river.

We are already had discussion tonight from a number of people about the ELP navigational report which has drawn, quite rightly, attention to a number of serious effects of the new ferry hull design which is basically going to require the ferries to go more slowly but Michael Berry and Donald McKenzie mentioned that, more slowly to reduce the damage to the river, reduce the hazard to passing craft. 

But I would like to think just for a minute about the ferry travelling along the Lymington River in a crosswind.  Water flow as I have said runs across the unit and if the ferry is travelling slowly, that flow has got to be strong enough to stop the ferry being blown by the huge windage on the side of the superstructure, 84% bigger than the existing ferries. Because it is higher it has a much more powerful effect in terms of wind loading.  So here we’ve got, with these massive units, producing three times the amount of power having to cope with the effect of this greatly enlarged superstructure.  “Nearly the same footprint.” The wind print is very different. 

For a substantial period on either side of low water, twice a day, the bottom of the ferry is very near the bottom of the river so that the water flow will basically act like an underwater pressure jet or grit blaster and will cut into the river basin sides, damaging the banks.  Mud is either carried up the river or taken out to sea.  If you want an example of that people who are on the river, for example, visitors coming on boats, who we have already understood, bring an awful lot of trade to the town are often intimidated by the bulk of the existing ferries, and by the swirling mud-laden water which is left twisting the boats around a long distance behind.  That’s with units, which are a third of the size of the new ferries’. 

So with that background, I would like to ask the Harbour Commissioners to make sure that in the work that I am very grateful to hear is now being commissioned to assess the effect of the propulsion units on the sideways effects of the banks, particularly in strong winds, and to note that the ferry slows down in the river, which is what is being recommended, to take account of all the various sorts of  damage that Michael Berry has talked about, you will have a longer with these propulsion units eating away at the banks so that  in fact makes the damage more dramatic as they go more slowly. 

And I would also call upon the Harbour Commissioners to assess the risk of a disaster of a small dinghy is sucked into one of these huge propulsion units as the ferries travel up and down the river something like 2,000 times a month.  And in case you think I’m talking about one of these hypothetical risks, I understand there was a fatality with a ferry, which would not be unrelated to this some years ago, so it’s a very real issue of concern.

I have great difficulty understanding how a handful of tests on the new ferry can adequately assess these very important issues.  Clearly proper environmental and safety assessments are still going to be carried out.  Mr Harbour Commissioner I understand you are undertaking but these have got to be done before the ferries arrive.  Thank you.

CLIVE SUTTON

Thank you Dr Hay.  Now its Derf Paton on the environmental issues.

DERF PATON

Good evening everybody.  I have sailed on the Lymington River for fifty years. I’ve sailed in a wooden boat and I have twice on two occasions fore and aft and on both occasions my boat has been sunk by ferries I had three onboard my boat when the ferry struck us.  I can tell you thats not a very nice thing.  So I have got strong feelings about big ferries.

My family own the water from the Efford Bridge down to the Keyhaven SSI and I am engaged in a five-year plan to reinstate the freshwater wetlands. Its very easy to be apathetic and I believe we all, including Wightlink, have a duty of care to look after the precious environment and to secure it through our fragile river for future generations.  Not something that one pays much attention to normally but I am sure you are beginning to realise more and more that this fragile thing that we live by and I have to tell you that the Lymington River is very special because we have got fresh water meeting sea water. 

Wightlink have insisted that the proposed ferries have a similar footprint to the current ferries and therefore will have no greater impact.  There are four major points of these the extra displacement, and the bigger superstructures contribute the most to the need for the greater horsepower.  The increased water-level footprint is significantly larger than the existing ferries’ even if high water level they are similar.  This is because the proposed ferries are in fact much wider at the waterline. You can all see that?  So you can see there the actual distance at the water line.  I would suggest to everybody in this room that it’s the waterline that matters not the width of the ferry.

HEAR, HEAR

Now that’s 16 meters versus 12.2 and Wightlink management tell us that the proposed ferries have exactly the same near enough as the existing footprint but the water level footprint is 40% greater.  Can we move on to the next please.

Wightlink claim that there will be no increased impact on the not much bigger ferries but that just cannot be the fact. This is despite the fact that in their navigational review indicated that there would be and despite this they have gone ahead and started building the ferries. I don’t think that was the right way to do things. Slide six please.

A suggested solution is to reduce the displacement surge damage of the ferries – does everyone know what displacement surge is ?

NOOOO

Do you want to know?  OK.  I will leave till next one.  I will deal with that. I am a very simple horticulturalist you have got to remember. The suggested solution to reduce the displacement surge damage that the ferries should slow down and I have to say that the slower they travel, the worse will be the damage to the riverbed.  From the scouring of the tips of the propulsion units which you have seen from Dr Hay’s slides -- I will put them back up in a minute -- the tips of the propulsion unit and the water jet water act simply like a pressure jet cleaners like you have got.  Slowing down will be a bigger disaster.  The evidence is already proven in the areas.  Slide seven please OK.

Later, Wightlink commissioned an environmental appraisal, which only looked at existing documentation.  There has been no proper study of the marine environment that is under the water.  And that is where the flora and fauna start.   And that is where actually the whole of the planet starts off, at these lower levels.  So you say there isn’t anything?  I say to you that there is plenty of evidence and it is seriously worrying.  The riverbanks have disappeared above the mud flat at the edge just outside the clubs.  If you go down there, there is no slip way what they call a hard, it’s gone. It’s now replaced by what is effectively a beach. Then if you go further down the river, you will find that at Tanners Lake the hard edge as the specialists call it has gone.  That tells us it is way back from its original position.  When a wave comes in, it actually works by sucking and I believe that is what is happening.  The evidence is there. But in spite of evidence -- and I think a lot of people do know about this -- that towards where the ferries stop and they hover we have actually got down to the gravel that is quite well known so in other words where the ferries stop -- the Voyce Schneiders as they are called -- these things whistle round -- that is roughly the size of a piece of equipment that is in there. 

There are a number of bullet points there.  First of all, the difference in the horsepower.  That is just huge when we are talking about flora and fauna.  They ain’t got a hope. If you look at what the blades will do, Dr Hay has explained and its well known that ferries do touch the bottom of the river when they are going up and down so those will scrub the river base and it will effectively be almost like sterilising that base every time the ferries go up at low or high water.  These units are unique to Wightlink and my concern is that as they actually do because they are picking up grit they actually act like a sort of cutting blade cutting through the mud.  The mud then stays in suspension. 

So where is the rest of the evidence?  When a ferry goes up and pushes the displacement I haven’t explained that.  First of all, it pushes it up the river, so the harbour terminal has to be dredged. Right down through the whole of the river, we don’t have to dredge because the ferry is taking it out!  The next thing is that it goes out to sea but the key thing is that all or most people here know what a depth gauge is, or an echo sound whatever you want.  If you go down there you will see when the ferry goes down just before and just after high water a plume of mud behind the ferry.  Those are mud particles are taken away out of Lymington River and with them go the micro flora upsetting their life span.

Do you want to do surge?  Ladies and gentlemen want to know about surge.  What is surge?  When you drop something in the water, it displaces a lump of water. That is surge. And the amount of displacement we have … Is everyone interested?  Just look at these figures if you would please.  76% greater water displacement.  That is massive by anybody’s terms. The displacement is when you drop anything it doesn’t matter what it is.  If I dropped this microphone in the glass (you would all feel a lot better) it would displace the water with the microphone.  So when that goes in it then gets pushed it doesn’t matter if its Wightlink or anyone else’s it will push that water in front of it and that determines, as I understand it, the wave height. 

So to reduce the wave height, you can reduce the speed of the ferry which is the answer which we are possibly going to have and my view, Ladies and gentlemen, is that what we really want to do is to have a fully objective study put out by Natural England – there is someone from Natural England listening to us tonight is there? Is there someone from Natural England? No?  Because you are all going to have to write letters to Natural England. 

Natural England are the only body who really have got the power base to sort this out and I cannot believe that Wightlink will not accept that there is a totally independent survey. At the end of our little talk that is what I want to do and before I forget Mr Harbour Commissioner, you have also got another letter to write.  Its crucial that every one of you writes a letter to Natural England about the barrier at the river mouth.  If you don’t get that before anything else we do please….

Now I had better get back to where I was.  So you are all happy about displacement surge?  (YES)  Slide seven please.  Wightlink only looked at the existing documentation.  Had it been a proper study it should have looked at the marine environment. Is that not what we all do?  What’s happening down below the water.  So I say that that survey didn’t do its job and that’s why I want to see a fully independent one. …. the worrying symptoms along the riverbank and what happens when ferries…., and where the ferries hover,  because where the ferries hover, don’t forget the horsepower you are talking about, these things are nearly three times the size that is what’s going to happen they are going to scurge  the whole of the bottom of that river. 

So I am about to finish you will all be pleased to know. Natural England should convene a review on the introduction of the new ferries between Lymington and Yarmouth.  We should be very concerned and Wightlink should be concerned with us.  The facts speak for themselves.  You have seen them up there. The flora and the fauna can’t speak for themselves. Everybody in this room has got to speak for them.  So please pick up your pens Natural England have all the statutory powers to deal with this and I will just say these ferries:   it doesn’t say what it does on the tin. Thank you for listening.

APPLAUSE

CLIVE SUTTON

I can say to Derf before we forget, that last time I laboriously prepared a transcript of the last Hearing on the Flats.  We have a tape recorder here and I’ll do the same again and send it to Natural England.  Now Mike Beggs, Traffic Transport and Freight.

MIKE BEGGS

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen.  My name is Mike Beggs and I live on Silver Street, along Sway Road, a C class road already dangerous with traffic and lorries.  Now if I want to enlarge my house, I have to get Planning Permission. If I want to run a lorry through my premises I have to get approval from Hampshire County Council.  But Wightlink believe that they can get away with a £1.5m redevelopment of their landbase without reference to anyone.  And they can nearly double the displacement of their ferries without reference to anyone.  Why?  Because they say quote:  “This is not a project, or a plan, but an activity”.  Yes, laugh, please.  I wonder what the judge would agree with. 

As for the traffic, they say “it is only seventeen cars”. Yes its only 17 cars, 17 on, 17 off every half an hour that is 68 cars per hour along Undershore, up to 1,260 extra cars per day.  But Mr Willson just showed us a picture with lorries, lines of lorries.  If I look at Wightlink’s information supplied to the Isle of Wight Council, probably to impress them, on how much extra business they’re going to carry to the Island, they show, I quote,  “C” class: 270 meters of car lanes, total freight capacity 110 meters" but the weight is limited so if it was full, the 110 meters was full with lorries, there would be no weight for cars.   But the new vessels can carry 370 meters of cars or 211 meters of cars hand 110 meters for freight because they have the extra carrying capacity.  The new ships can carry 40 cars and 110 meters of freight. 

This is what the extra 100 plus tons deadweight is for. They also tell the Isle of Wight Council that the new ships can carry, quote “for example:  eight 12-meter trailers at an average 22 tonnes of laden weight which would equate to a 176 tons deadweight requirement” unquote.  So since this operation is doing pretty profits we can look forward to a night service of 32 juggernauts per hour through Lymington or Beaulieu. Or on Saturday, 30 coaches and a hundred and sixty cars per hour.

Wightlink say “road connections have improved”.  Where???  Can you tell me?

LAUGHTER

I don’t know of any within ten miles of Lymington.  The bridge at Ampress regularly traps those that take the A337 and the rest go through Beaulieu on the B3054.  There are no improved road connections. 

HEAR HEAR APPLAUSE

Wightlink management may tell you that the extra 200 tons is so that they can carry lorries from Portsmouth to Fishbourne.  Let them take them there!

APPLAUSE

So finally I would like to ask the elective representatives of Lymington Town Council and the New Forest District Council and the Hampshire County Council and higher:  What are you going to do about it?

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

CLIVE SUTTON

I should have said that word “higher” is a reference to Desmond Swayne, our Member of Parliament, who we are very pleased to have with us today.  Our next speaker is going to be Tom McEwan.

TOM McEWAN

Can you hear me?  I won’t be more than 30 seconds.  In 1993, Wightlink attempted to replace the existing ferries with much larger ships.  They abandoned their plans because of a strong local campaign against larger ferries.  Today, there are two very significant additional factors.  Firstly the environmental issues of the river and its surroundings are large more serious. 

Secondly, Wightlink has been bought up by the European arm of a powerful Australian investment bank.  This time, as you have heard, Wightlink managed to lull the various bodies involved into believing that the proposed ships would be little different from the existing ferries. And that their impact on the river would be largely unchanged.  You have heard the facts this evening about that. Now that the true picture has emerged, with a rapidly growing groundswell of opinion as you can see, if Wightlink persist, the Harbour Commissioners will have the wholehearted support of the concerned local community in imposing speed restrictions and other restraints on the ferry operation which are likely to make the operation of these ships impractical.  Wightlink would have been wise to realise this at an earlier stage…

HEAR HEAR APPLAUSE

Opposition to this Wightlink will continue to grow scheme and it will not go away

CLIVE SUTTON

Our last speaker is Mr Marc Malanaphy

MARC MALANAPHY

I’ll keep it very, very brief.  Basically, the proposed new ferries are four meters wider at the waterline.  That is substantial.  They carry a payload of two, two and a half times what the current ferries can carry. That will end up on the roads, whether it is coaches, cars, whatever.  What I would say this is not Dover, Folkstone, Felixstowe or Humberside. This is Lymington, a small meandering river.  Lymington does not have a beach, a pier or a mountain.  It has a river.  For heavens sake, lets look after it.  Thank you

APPLAUSE

CLIVE SUTTON

This is now the time for musical chairs.  Could we have the main speakers on the platform so that they can answer questions. I will take the roving mike around and they can use the mike on the platform.  

The platform then consisted of:

Mr Willson of Wightlink,

Mr Peter Griffiths, Harbour Commissioner. 

Dr Donald MacKenzie, Lymington Society.

Mr Marc Malanaphy. 

CLIVE SUTTON

Can we start off with questions.  We must choose a subject first.  I think the main subject of interest is the actual question of the size of the ferries and the impact of their wash on the river.  I think that is the first question.  Has anyone got a question relating to the use of the river as far as sailing is concerned ?

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen.  John Beaumont, Beaulieu River.  I would like to ask if there are three ferries -- I believe Wightlink are going to order a third, I believe they pass frequently, and the passing of these larger ones is going to be a most interesting manoeuvre.  I would like to know what is happening with this third ferry and especially when one sees the accounts of Wighlink where they’re showing £67 million pound loss, I presume these ferries are meant to redress this loss for Mcquaries who will otherwise be rather upset. And I gather there is a plan for extra cars, lorries, caravans, …. I would like to know what their actual business can is.

MR WILLSON Quite a number of points there.  In terms of vessels, it is our full intention to have three new vessels we are in the process of exercising the option of the third vessel because we do need to replace the three vessels next year.  All of the old “C” class vessels will come out of service next year.  In terms of the other points, I am not sure what set of accounts you are looking at with regards to a £67m loss but that’s certainly not a true reflection of the extent of the trading loss of Wightlink.   I suspect you are looking at a set which is incomplete year and includes very many adjustments on acquisitions which accounts for that.

CLIVE SUTTON Anyone else want to address that question?  Any other questions?

Mr Chairman.  My name is Anna Rostand.  I have to admit to being a new Forest district Council member. …. I just wanted to say on behalf of a lot of people here, how well informed our speakers have been.  I came here actually knowing very little, I have to admit, about the ferries and about the flora and fauna of the river.  I just want to say thank you very much to all of the people.  I think we have all learned an awful lot.  Thank you.

APPLAUSE

CLIVE SUTTON Thank you very much for that.  Another question? 

My name is Ian Deighton.  Would the sailing be a lot safer especially with these new ferries if Dan Brown’s pontoon had not been built?

MR GRIFFITHS HARBOUR COMMISSIONER

Interesting idea but I think its fair to say that before Dan Brown pontoon was built, that space there would be dry at low water.  We were looking at charts the other day actually and we concluded quite reasonably that having dredged that area now right back to the -- almost to the wave screen for the marina and put moorings there we have actually increased quite significantly the area of water that is available at all states of the tide around that area so that is an increased safety aspect rather than a decreased one.

IAN DEIGHTON (again) I used to do a lot of dinghy sailing especially on a Wednesday evening and we were able to go inside the X boats and quite close up to the seawall before all this was built.

MR GRIFFITHS

I understand what you are saying.  You can still go inside the X boats which will definitely keep you well out of the way of the ferry and you have now got deep water at any state of the tide.  You couldn’t have done that in low water.  You could only do that in the weeks when you had a high water in the evenings.  I mean I sail there as well in my own scow so I know what you are talking about

KEITH WICKS

I sail regularly on the Lymington River….. My concern is over speeds.  I think most of us who use the river regularly will see that currently the ferries do exceed the speed limit and sometimes by a fair amount.  We have been told that it is likely that lower speed limits will be required.  I therefore have a question for the Harbour Commissioner.  Are they going to monitor ferry speeds in the river and if Wightlink exceed these speed limits what sanctions will they apply?

MR GRIFFITHS

Thank you for that.  That gives a good opportunity to bring everybody up to date.  Anticipating exactly this sort of concern, back at the beginning of the year we actually installed in the harbour office AIS receiver system for noting the speeds of all AIS equipped vessels up and down the river and right out into the Solent.  This is actually on the computer system with trigger points set on it so that every time a ferry or any other AIS equipped vessel exceeds a preset speed limit it triggers a record on our machine.  We have been using this for the last few months to monitor carefully speeds of the existing ferries. 

You may not be surprised to hear that there were a fair number of occasions on which they were actually exceeding the speeds.  We have managed by working with Wightlink on this to now get their speeds down to the appropriate limits.  They now rarely, very rarely, go more than four knots above the wave screen and very rarely above six knots in the rest of the river.  So we did anticipate this, we have it in hand.

In terms of sanctions, we have on the occasions when we have discovered they were in fact exceeding the speed limits, we have given Wightlink a number of written warnings, and they are now well aware that if it happens again there will be a prosecution under our byelaws so we have every intention of enforcing whatever speed we decide on.

APPLAUSE

My name is John Sommers .  It has been a very interesting evening.  Since the Harbour Commissioners seem to have very limited powers, with all these tests done, who is actually the person who is going to give the crunch answer, Yes or No?

APPLAUSE

MR GRIFFITHS

The crunch answer will be I think be where we are sitting at the moment having looked at the reports we have seen so far.  Ultimately the crunch answer will be a set of operational parameters.  The crunch will be whether Wightlink in fact can work to those and it will be Wightlinks decision.  We will decide what we consider to be the appropriate speed and other operating requirements, we will get these codified into our byelaws as and when it is necessary and once we have done that, its for Wighlink to decide whether or not they can operate to those.

STUART DUFFYN Until I retired last year as an executive of?  Technology it seemed modern computer technology could give us a simulation to demonstrate the effect of the larger ferries on the river.  It would seem that it be quite possible for Wightlink to build a simulation which could answer a lot of questions which have been put this evening.

APPLAUSE

MR GRIFFITHS You might be encouraged to know that we have already been in discussions with EC NT?  To set up just such a study.  I was talking earlier about having shown the terms of reference which we have done.  We expect to do exactly the same theoretical study when we should lease checking all these issues before Christmas and as I have said before when we expect to be bringing in all the various user groups which have their own views so that the impact of the ferries can be taken into account in the process.

CLIVE SUTTON.  A question at the back.  There have been several questions for the Harbour Commissioner so far.

MR GRIFFITHS.  He is quite happy to continue answering questions.

A question for the Harbour Commissioners (laughter).  My name is Mark Pidsley.  I sail a lot.  I'm also aware of the fact that there are numerous byelaws relating to the operation of ships particularly in the Lymington River.

My view is at the moment Wightlink currently contravene at least seven of these bylaws and………..

I don't know if the Chief Executive and Wightlink have looked at these bylaws but it might assist them if their attention is drawn to one of these bylaws which says that "the narrowness of the Channel creates a pattern of different pressure around any craft larger than others which occupies much of the available waterway.  A smaller craft passing from one pressure zone to another will suffer shearing interaction which may be more than maximum rudder application can correct.  Collision may follow as the smaller craft is drawn across the larger vessel." This is quoted directly from the bylaws under Part 6.

Surely there is a failure in the risk assessment undertaken on the half of all parties involved not to emphasise this.

APPLAUSE

MR GRIFFITHS.  I was aware of the bylaw that is being quoted.

Inaudible response from questioner

The bylaws of course have to be read with the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea which provide for the safest way to operate.

My name is Marcus Ford.  I actually work on the ferries.  Just on the question of speed.  We have been operating on the Commissioners guidelines for the last six months and it hasn't made a great deal of difference to us …..

END OF RECORDING

The secretary also took notes of questions, and his notes include some questions which followed the end of the recording. To view his notes click here