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The House of Commons Transport Select Committee has today issued their Fourth Report of Session 2014-15, titled Passenger Transport in Isolated Communities.
Part 2 of the report, titled Isolated People, contains a section devoted to the Isles of Scilly and you can read the report in full here
The Council of the Isles of Scilly welcomes the report, although there are inaccuracies; for example transport for health and education are already subsidised for residents.
The Council has not reversed its position on subsidies; we have always championed subsidised fares for residents and we welcome the new state aid rules on Aid of a Social Character which makes this possible. Aid of a Social Character provides cheaper fares for residents across all transport modes. In our opinion a Public Service Obligation remains highly unlikely whilst the routes are operated commercially.
We look forward to working with the Department for Transport on a residents travel scheme and reading the response to the report.
Chris Thomas, Chairman of Transport, said: “ We welcome the report and particularly welcome the Committee’s support of Aid of a Social Character to help residents with the cost of transport. It is to this end that we have set up the Transport for Scilly Board and the Transport Task and Finish Group, which defined our request to Government when our Chairman and CEO met with Baroness Kramer in June. At this meeting we asked Baroness Kramer to consider subsidising residents travel through Aid of a Social character, extra funding towards our roads and continuing support for the quay project, explaining that with our own and European resources we were resurfacing and refurbishing the runways at St Mary’s, hardening the runways at Land’s End and resurfacing as many roads as we can afford whilst the asphalt plant is on the islands.”