Friday 23 April 2021

IOS Council to submit 'Levelling Up' Bid for new Ferry

 The IOS Council held an extraordinary Full Council meeting on 9 April 21 to agree to submit a bid to the Government’s Levelling Up Fund to fund replacement vessels for the ferry/freight service.  The bid has to be submitted by 18 Jun and the there will an extraordinary Full Council meeting on 10 Jun to approve the bid prior to submission.

Paper to Councillors  here

The Strategic Outline Business Case (Dec 2019) here.

Letter from Minister to Lord Berkeley dated 23 Mar 21 here

Draft meeting minutes here


Penzance Heliport Update

 Helicopter services between Penzance and the Isles of Scilly resumed on 12 April 2021.  Advice to passengers about Covid 19 and booking arrangements is provided in the Heliport's update (Feb 2021) here.

FRIST Blog lives again!

 After an extended period of downtime causes by the loss of the frist.org.uk domain the FRIST blog will be back on the Internet under "www.frist.news" in the next few days.  FRIST supporters who subscribe to our mailing list (there are nearly 1000 of them) will have received two newsletters during 2020 and our recent Spring 2021 update last week.   We apologize for the extended blog 'downtime'.

Tuesday 20 August 2019

Penzance - IOS Helicopter tickets available now for March 2020 onwards!

Received by FRIST from Tom Matthews, Marketing Director, Treso Estates 19 Aug 19:

On behalf of the helicopter operator, please find below information on Penzance Helicopters.

Ticket sales will launch tomorrow (Tuesday 20th August 2019) at www.penzancehelicopters.co.uk with flights taking off from 17th March 2020.

Following the wonderful support of FRIST members in getting the project to this stage, we would be delighted if you would bring this to their attention (though please note the press release attached is embargoed until 0900 on Tuesday 20th August) I also attach an image of the helicopter for use in publicity materials.

In brief, flights are scheduled to take off from 17th March 2020, flying direct to both Tresco and St Mary’s from the new Penzance Heliport. The facility will provide excellent accessibility, located just off the A30 at Penzance with 270 parking spaces, and less than a mile from Penzance railway station by electric shuttle bus. The sea level location of the site will offer excellent weather resilience to low cloud and fog.

Flights will take just 15-minutes in a state-of-the-art AW139 helicopter, with up to 17 flights per day, six days a week - Monday to Saturday, significantly increasing the capacity and resilience of air services to the islands and helping provide a foundation for future growth in the islands. Ticket prices start form £122.50 one-way. The service is operated by Sloane Helicopters – one of the leading helicopter operators in Europe with nearly 50 years’ experience.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

With very best wishes,

Tom

Tom Matthews
Marketing Director

T: 01720 424114
M: 07395 788667




Tuesday 21 May 2019

FRIST Newsletter - Spring 2019

FRIST produces periodic newsletters to keep individuals and organizations interested in IOS transport issues ‘up to speed’ with developments.  The Spring 2019 newsletter has just gone out to 770 ‘friends’ signed up on our mailing list for email updates.  The email (with links to the newsletter) can viewed here.

If you want to be on the FRIST mailing list for updates please subscribe at  http://eepurl.com/ntKDL .  You will not be bombarded by emails (we usually send out 2-3 emails a year) and you can be reassured your personal information will not be shared.  You can unsubscribe at any time (there is an 'unsubscribe' link at the bottom of every email we send out). 

Topics in the Spring newsletter include:

•             Scillonian/Skybus fare increases for 2019. 

•             Transport reliability and resilience  - continuing concerns.

•             Passenger capacity issues in 2018.

•             Appledore Shipyard – discussions continue.

•             IOS Transport Board.

•             New leadership of the IOSSCO Board

•             Mali Rose up for sale (a mistake acknowledged)!

•             Penzance Heliport.


•             IOS/Mainland pax statistics 1990 – 2018 (they tell a story)