Greens express concern over potential loss of ferry landing

After the latest announcement that costs for the new ferry landing have spiralled up to £13 million and that there will now have to be a bid to the Department for Transport to fund this, Greens urge local authorities to urgently put a plan in place to guarantee the service, with or without government investment. 

The problems with the current ferry landing, and plans to relocate further downstream, have been known for a while now after Nexus, who run the ferry service, revealed plans after storms had damaged the landing back in Nov 2019. Since then, Greens are concerned that plans have not been matched with the urgency required.

Funding has been available for the project and North Tyneside Council praised the “major funding boost” as far back as January 2021 when they stated that their successful bid to the Getting Building Fund would “help secure the long-term future of this important service”. However, in July 2022 it was announced that the funding was “lost” as they were not able to deliver the project in the short timescales required. Although this attempts to deflect blame on this, Nexus did not even submit a planning application for the project until August 2022, showing that the project was never ready to capitalise on the Getting Building Fund which required projects to be “shovel-ready“. Greens are extremely concerned that the public have been badly misled over the potential for funding, receiving false reassurances that the project was in hand, when it was always unlikely that the project would be delivered in time, and that there has been a lack of proper scrutiny on this. 

Greens also have concerns about why the current ferry landing has been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that it is now only usable for another two years. The jetty was installed less than 20 years ago and begs the question why it is in such a state after a relatively short period of time, as well as where the regular maintenance of this infrastructure has been, and why this has not been effective.  

Finally, this makes a mockery of the commitment by the council and North East Combined Authority Joint Transport Committee to support active travel, something they have recently talked up with their new Active Travel Strategy, and key to their Making the Right Travel Choice Strategy, which encourages people to use public transport and active travel wherever possible. Also, North Tyneside Council recently agreed their North Tyneside Cycling Strategy which aims to “improve connectivity between cycling and other forms of transport, making it easier to cycle as part of a longer journey and multi modal trips” with explicit mention of the ferry as “a valuable link in the public transport network“. The ferry remains popular and is used by pedestrians and cyclists of all ages but the loss of the service will be massively detrimental to all these strategies. 

Alan Steele, local Green Party campaigner in North Tyneside says “We are very concerned that such a vital transport link is now in jeopardy and that local politicians have stated that if the ferry service is lost it will never return. It seems that plans for moving the ferry landing downstream have been in the offing for several years now, and that we have been given false reassurance from Nexus and others, and we urge all involved to get around the table to sort this mess out. We know that we can’t rely on the government to give funding and so there must be a local solution available. We simply cannot lose the ferry service and must get this sorted with or without government funding.”

Leader of the Opposition on South Tyneside Council and Green Party councillor for Beacon and Bents ward in South Shields, David Francis said, “The ferry is a lifeline for people on both sides of the river. To lose it could potentially devastate an already struggling local economy. As South Tyneside Council have now unveiled their plans to transform South Shields town centre and are gearing up to welcome a state of the art new college just a few hundred yards from the ferry landing, we call on the lead cabinet member for transport, Cllr Margaret Meling, and the Labour-run council here in South Tyneside to do the right thing for our community and pull out all the stops to save this historic and precious service. Not only is the ferry vital for commuters and students, losing it will also have a huge impact on our environment. Forcing pedestrians and cyclists back into cars will threaten air quality and worsen congestion. Local leaders should be doing all they can to protect and improve local active travel and public transport infrastructure, not allow it to deteriorate and disappear”