Letter: This is why ferry price has gone up

All service organisations have to review the price of their fares on a regular basis and while we all do all we can to keep our costs down, and the cost to our customers as low as possible, increases are something that despite our best efforts we can’t always avoid.

It is over four years since we have applied increases to some of our fares, and over 10 years since we increased fares for pedestrians and cyclists. The decision to adjust our fares was taken very seriously, especially given that this is an important tourism asset and also given the difficulties that the ferry has encountered over the last two years.

For a long time pedestrians enjoyed the journey for 50p which, again, I am sure your readers will agree is exceptional value for money and as you will appreciate is not a viable fare long term. When looking at all of this the council felt that the new cost for a pedestrian at £1 and a cyclist at £2 per crossing still provided excellent value.

When we reviewed the cost of cars we felt that what we charged was more in-line with current market trends so the cost increase here in terms of an overall percentage was less than the increase we made for pedestrians and cyclist. For regular travellers the council continues to offer a number of heavily discounted annual contracts or bulk purchase of tickets for the ferry. An annual contract for a pedestrian or cyclist is £30, or a book of 20 tickets is £5 for a pedestrian or £10 for cyclists, which provides excellent value for money.

We recognise the ferry is a well-loved and popular local asset and our customers' views really do matter to us. This is why we have established the new Windermere Ferry Steering Group, made up of local businesses, residents and customers – and we will be taking all of this feedback back to the group for them to consider.

If anyone else would like to provide to us their comments we would welcome these at betterhighways.southlakeland@cumbria.gov.uk