As the period for submitting information to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) closed on Friday the Island’s MP Andrew Turner has spoken of how pleased he has been with the public response. Over 9,000 people and organisations contacted the MP’s office and many gave evidence of the impact the ferries have. Over the weekend Mr Turner’s staff in Newport worked hard to finalise his submission, organise all the evidence supplied by the public and ensure that it safely reached the OFT’s offices in London.
Mr Turner said:
“There are so many people to thank; it is hard to know where to start. The local media and the Island’s Women’s Institutes and Townswomen’s Guilds who did such a great job of publicising the campaign; the small group of local businessmen who gave so much help behind the scenes in marshalling the arguments in favour of a full investigation and my fantastic staff who have coped with all the extra work this has generated with such good grace. I should like to thank the OFT as well for actually undertaking the market survey – only about 5% of the matters that are raised with them result in further action so it is clear they understand there may be a problem. Most of all, though, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the campaign. I believe this is one of the most important issues for the future of the Island. It is now a matter of waiting to see what the OFT make of it all – they are due to announce their decision in May.”
Mr Turner went on to say that his final submission, like the one he gave to the OFT last July, could not be made public as it contained confidential information but he did give information on the statistics from the comments posted on his website.
“The evidence for the OFT came to me in a variety of ways but the largest group of people, over 5,000, gave evidence via my website. Of that group 83% were Island based. The concerns raised were many and varied but we have categorised them into broad groups. The biggest concern was unsurprisingly about prices charged with 74% mentioning that as an issue, and most of them saying it was the most important issue. A further 23% said they felt pricing policies were unfair in some way. The number of people who were worried about the monopoly nature of the market or the management and ownership of the Ferry companies was 18% which was the same percentage as felt the ferries damaged the Island’s economy. This exercise proved that many Islanders are concerned for those who are disadvantaged in some way with 15% mentioning the hardship faced by those who are facing an emergency, hospital treatment or belong to a low income group. All these comments were unprompted so it is a very interesting analysis.”
END Contact : Andrew Turner’s office 01983 530808
