News Update

Weather affecting Flights.   

Stormy weather will continue to affect flights to and from Scilly in the run up to Christmas so do check the status of flights if travelling to SW England to fly to Scilly.

See Scilly Today for news item/contact telephone number: here  

New Birmingham/Newquay Air Route.  

Flybe are establishing a new route between Birmingham and Newquay starting 16 May 2013.  The service will run 7 days a week.  The new service has been welcomed by Newquay Airport and Skybus.   See Scilly Today: here

Project Delays for Harbour Works.

Projects to improve St Mary's and Penzance Harbour have been delayed.  Although the Dept for Transport gave the nod in Sep 13 that its contribution was assured, the ERDF contribution is awaiting confirmation that the project does not breech EU state aid rules.  There is not expected to be a problem in this area but the confirmation is an essential procedural step to avoid the project being declared ineligible for ERDF funding.   

It had been feared that the delay in funding would prove fatal as the deadline for letting new contracts under the current 7 year ERDF tranch was thought to be 31 Dec 2013.  However, it appears that deadline has been relaxed by DCLG (administrators of the ERDF) as the harbour projects can be easily delivered before the absolute deadline of 31 Dec 2015 after which no payments for project work can be paid. 

See IOS Council Project Update (19 Nov 13):   here   http://tinyurl.com/pfmh5t3

Project Delay for Airport Improvements.

Contractual issues prevented the selected contractor starting planned works in in Nov 2013.   It is understood the projects are being re-tendered and will proceed in 2014.  Given the problems with waterlogging of the grass strip at Lands Airport there is obvious disappointment that this work could not be completed at the beginning of the winter.

See IOS Transport Committee documents (Page 209/210):  here  (12 MB - slow to download)

Transport Survey Results. 

A full report of the IOSC Transport Preference Survey is included in the IOSC Transport Committee briefing pack.  See pages 55 - 208.  Thank you to everybody who responded to calls from the  IOSC and FRIST to participate in the online survey to supplement the telephone survey because it generated nearly 500 extra responses, almost all of which were from regular travellers.

There is much that was expected in the report.  The majority of travellers preferred the air route because of the convenience of the service.  However there was a significant minority who preferred the sea route.  Lower cost and reliability were the attributes quoted for the ferry.  What was less expected was the strong demand for improvements in the sea route, both improvements in terminal facilities (especially Penzance) and the desire for a winter ferry service.

See IOS Transport Committee documents (Pages 55 - 208) here.   (12MB - slow to download)