Campaign for Steam Packet to sail from Fleetwood again
13th June, 2016
A Facebook campaign has been launched to reintroduce the ferry service between the Isle of Man and Fleetwood.
Currently negotiations are taking place between the IOM Government, the Isle of Man Steam Packet and port owners, Peel Ports Ltd over plans to move the Steam Packet's current Pier Head landing stage to Waterloo Dock, half a mile down river.
Port bosses the Peel Group are in discussions with the Isle of Man government over the £15m plans, which could see work start on the Waterloo Dock site in around 12 months time.
Mr England, who started the Facebook petition, plans to present it to the Manx government once 2,500 signatures has been reached and said 'If the Manx berth at Liverpool is having to be moved and the Isle of Man asked to pay, I think it is time to look for a viable north west port elsewhere and Fleetwood could be the answer'
As far as freight services are concerned, Fleetwood is 45 miles from our Skelmersdale depot and Heysham is 52 miles, both journeys take about an hour. However with the new Heysham link road due to open shortly we expect a reduction in travel time and hopefully the amount of time our vehicles are held up in traffic in Lancaster will be significantly reduced. We see no advantage in changing freight services from Heysham in either crossing times or road journey times.
Fleetwood was last used by P&O and Stena Line but since their departure there has been no dredging of the channel with even small fishing boats encountering problems accessing the port.
