Formal push for ferry subsidy increase

An influential committee has formally asked Lancashire County Council’s cabinet to provide the extra cash needed to keep the Fleetwood to Knott End ferry afloat.

The authority’s cross-party budget and finance scrutiny group made the request during a meeting on Wednesday. The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands that the move places the issue on the agenda of an already scheduled cabinet gathering taking place on Thursday – when members will now have to vote on the scrutiny committee’s call.

It comes amid an ongoing dispute between the county council and Wyre Council over the bill for an increase in the public subsidy for the service. Without an agreement to secure a fresh deal with the operator of the vessel, the cross-river connection will be severed later this month.

Currently, the two authorities each provide half of the £114,000 that has been required to support the operation – which would not otherwise be commercially viable.

Earlier this year, bids were sought for a new contract to run the service until 2019 with the same level of subsidy, but none were received – putting the ferry in jeopardy.

A short-term solution was found in April – just days before the boat would have stopped running – after it was agreed to use the councils’ cash support to maintain the service over the busy summer months while attempts were made to find a more permanent arrangement.

That money will run out within weeks – leaving a 12-mile road journey as the only other option for travel between the two communities. It adds two hours to the round trip if that journey is done by bus.

Wyre Council says the subsidy now needs to be hiked in order to facilitate a new deal it has negotiated to keep the ferry on the water – and the district authority has committed to increasing its 50 percent share of the cost accordingly.

However, the Reform-run county council says it would have to cut other “services that people in Lancashire rely on” if it was to stump up extra money from County Hall’s budget to match that – and so has told Conservative-controlled Wyre that it needs to cover any increase.

But the budget and finance scrutiny committee has now asked the cabinet to dip into a £4m cash pot agreed at its budget in February which was intended to fund projects put forward by county councillors. A report to be presented to cabinet members on Thursday reveals that almost £1m is still available in the so-called ‘strategic contingency budget’.

Proposing that a share of that balance be used to guarantee the future of the ferry, committee member – and Progressive Lancashire opposition group leader – Azhar Ali said: “We shouldn’t play ping pong with something like this. It should be something that the cabinet [approves] without any real argument.

“We have the contingency budget allocation and [the ferry] could be funded from that very easily – it’s not hundreds of thousands of pounds, it’s a very small amount.”

While the exact level of additional financial support needed to keep the ferry running has not been made public – as it is commercially confidential – the fact that the previous subsidy has this year lasted for only six months points to around double that amount now being required.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) before the scrutiny committee request was made, Wyre Council leader Michael Vincent hit out at the county council’s claim last week that it was his authority’s responsibility to fund any increased subsidy in its entirety.

He said that went against the spirit of the longstanding arrangement between the two councils, which – while specifying a cash amount – has been based on the principle of them going halves on the sum needed.

“We agreed that we would go out to tender on a new contract with the same level of subsidy – but that was ambitious at best,” Cllr Vincent said. “And nobody – including the current operator – was interested in doing that deal.

“Wyre signed off on the same amount of subsidy in our budget [as the county council] – but the fact is it’s not enough money. We’ve moved things around – and we found the money because we are actually committed to [the ferry].

“It’s a [much] bigger percentage of our budget than theirs – and if the county council want to keep [the service] going, they need to find 50 percent of the actual subsidy [needed], not the subsidy that we agreed to go out to tender on, because that [attracted] no bids.

“Had [the county council] come to us and said [they couldn’t] agree to [the new] level of subsidy, then we could have entered into a conversation with the provider – maybe reduced the service or done any [number] of things.

“But they’ve not done that. They’ve basically just said, ‘We’re not interested – Wyre runs it, it’s not our problem.’

“We’ve had no political engagement on it whatsoever – the [county council] officers have just done Reform’s dirty work for them.

“We’re sticking to our part of the deal, they need to stick to their part,” Cllr Vincent added.

Asked by the LDRS to respond to the issues raised by the Wyre leader, Lancashire County Council pointed to the statement it had already issued which prompted Cllr Vincent’s comments in the first place.

In that, County Hall’s cabinet member for highways and transport, Warren Goldsworthy, said: “We recognise the importance of the Fleetwood to Knott End Ferry and agreed funding of £57,110 a year to support the service for the next three years. We met our commitment and have paid our contribution for 2026.

“A significant amount of funding was also provided for the purchase of the ferry, which has been handed over to the operator.

“However, after the funding arrangement was agreed, we were asked to provide a significant additional contribution.

“We consider every financial decision carefully and if we had agreed to pay this, money would have been taken away from budgets already agreed to support services that people in Lancashire rely on.

“The contract to run the Fleetwood to Knott End Ferry is the responsibility of Wyre Council and, as we have already paid our half of the subsidy, they will need to find the additional funding requested or negotiate with the operator.”

Cllr Vincent said it was “misleading” to suggest that funding for the vessel itself was a recent commitment by the current county council administration, as the boat had been “gifted to the operator over the course of the last contract”.

The ferry has been operating under an eight-year deal signed between the two councils and Wyre Marine Services back in 2018. At the outset of that arrangement, it was hoped that the service could eventually be run on a commercial basis, but the impact first of the Covid pandemic and then spiralling fuel costs left it in need of increasing taxpayer support as the life of the contact progressed.

Pre-pandemic, there were around 30,000 passenger journeys a year on the ferry, but more recent usage figures have not been published.