BRUNY DELAYS HIT HOME

A WINTER timetable and long weekend traffic has combined to frustrate Bruny Island commuters once again.

Travellers had to wait for hours to get off the island, a situation which is not good enough say business operators, residents and the Labor Opposition.

“Sealink need to realise that tourists don’t stop coming because the calendar has turned to June,” resident Tash Daniels said.

THE return of long queues for the Bruny Island ferry a year after new operators were appointed shows the government-run tender process failed to lift capacity, Labor says.

The combination of a long weekend and a music festival on the island resulted in long waits for the ferry on Saturday morning and the expectation of a repeat on the return journeys.

Opposition infrastructure spokesman David O’Byrne said the new ferry operator was supposed to improve capacity on the service.

“When they announced the new tender it was an opportunity to increase capacity and increase the service and support to the island so you avoid queuing, and not only locals but tourists alike can get on and off the island efficiently.

“But unfortunately what we’ve seen is chaos,” he said.

Paul Victory from ferry operator Sealink said some waiting was to be expected at peak times.

“It’s a busy weekend of course, we’ve got more services than ever before, we’ve got two boats running. It’s a busy weekend but the numbers haven’t been dramatic,” he said.

Mr Victory said planned changes aimed for speed.

“In the long run if we’re able to get to a booking system, that will help the situation,” he said.

“We’re going to introduce online ticketing in the next month or so as the first stage of that, that’s going to help getting people through quicker at Kettering.”

However, Bruny Island resident Tash Daniels said the delays were not isolated to weekends.

“The winter timetable and running of ferries has left us wanting. For the whole first week of the winter timetable there have been over hour waits to get off the island in the afternoon,” she said. “Sealink need to realise that tourists don’t stop coming because the calendar has turned to June.”

Award-winning tourism operator Rob Pennicott said he was again losing business because of the ferry since the winter timetable began.

He said he had lost a lot of business during summer and now the problem had returned.

“We’ve had problems with the ferry, with guests not getting to us who had already booked,” Mr Pennicott said.

“A number have had to cancel because of their inability to get onto the island.

“On Saturday we had some of our guests getting into the ferry queue at 9.20am and not able to get across to the island until just before 1pm.

“For this time of the year it’s very disappointing because I’m only one business and there’s no doubt all the businesses will be suffering.”