REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Tuesday May 9, 2006

A FERRY service was proposed to be running on the Gold Coast before the end of 2007 after the council announced a winning tender.

Passenger ferries were to travel between Paradise Point and the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre at Broadbeach every half-hour, carrying mainly tourists for about $5 a ticket.

The council’s co-ordination committee endorsed Solar Coast Cats as its preferred supplier of a ferry system.

General manager Roland Brautigam said the service would be the most attractive and relaxing way to travel around the Gold Coast.

He said the ferries would be a tourist attraction ‘in their own right’ as they would form the first hybrid-driven service in the world.

Mr Brautigam estimated the service would attract about 3000 passengers a day, with the service to be expanded if it was successful.

”We are working at around $5 a ticket for a single trip from Paradise Point to the convention centre, though it is not concrete,” he said.

He said shuttles would run from the convention centre to Pacific Fair shopping centre.

Co-ordination committee chairman David Power said four companies submitted expressions of interest to run a ferry service, and that Solar Coast Cats) provided the most comprehensive business case. “There will be no need for the council to subsidise the actual operation,” said Cr Power.

He said negotiations would cover start-up costs and the issue of terminals.

“The ferry service will happen,” he said.