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Save Brittany Ferries Petition


woolybanana
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If interested, some folk might like to sign a petition to save Brittany Ferries which have been having a tough time since covid. The French local authorities who are behind it want the govt. to reduce or cancel the employers part of social security charges, at least. 3000 jobs involved.

https://www.sauvonslabrittany.bzh/

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ŵALBF does (as usual) mix up facts and non-facts.

The reality is that just 15% of BF’s activity is freight. Accordingly, they desperately need passenger (leisure) carryings, and that has reduced by 75%-ish this year. Most freight goes via the Tunnel and the short Channel route Dover - Calais.

Add to that a less than perfect response to pre-booked passengers in terms of phone / internet access, and they’re in a bad place. They’re not alone though in their customer service failings - most organisations have fallen short. Not terribly surprising though, given the unexpected of the last 6 months, eh?

I hope that I’m not proved wrong, but I’ll doubt that the French government will let them go bust. They’re the biggest employer of seafarers in the country and that will count. Petitions will tbh be irrelevent.

Frequency of sailings have been drastically reduced and several routes are curtailed until next year. They’ll return (I hope !), but it’ll be a slow road back.
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Well actually, 15% across (3 sailings per day to Cherbourg, Caen, Le Harve etc) is a lot of freight.

Believe me, those freight routes are important to logistic operators servicing the Western France, Spain, Portugal corridor.

Look at it this way. You can leave Birmingham in a truck (for example) 'Day A' and be in Bordeaux 'Day B' going the Poole-Cherbourg night ferry. Or..Madrid day C, and Portugal day D.

If you go straits (Dover -Calais), you add another day to the journey. That is not good. More fuel, under utilisation of vehicle, an extra days wages for the driver etc.

Well does that mean ALBF ? Well that means increased logistics costs for the transport operator.

Ooh shit ALBF...then who pays ? Well the customer does ALBF. You know Dave and Brenda who lives in Milton Keynes.

Also think hazardous goods. You know, everyday stuff you find in production and supermarkets. A lot can't go by the tunnel and some even require open deck spaces on ferries.

What does that mean ALBF ? That means longer transit times with freight being held up in Dover and Calais waiting for suitable ferries.

What does that mean ALBF. That means stopped production lines.

Ooh..I guess that is expensive. It can be. You know, if you stop a car production line it can cost thousands of pounds per minute.

Oooh dear Boris.
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ALBF wrote "If you go straits (Dover -Calais), you add another day to the journey."

According to today's Guardian, the government has worked out that a realistic worst case scenario would be queues of between 6 and 7 thousand lorries going through Kent which would take two to three days to clear. So probably you add three or four days to the journey. You'd think the last thing the UK wants, is funnelling ALL cross channel freight through Dover.

And government forecasts tend to be optimistic. Wasn't the UK supposed to stop at 20k covid deaths?

On a slightly different note I seem to recall that when Failing Grayling did his epic achievement of giving a ferry contract to a company that didn't operate ferries, he also booked up lots of capacity on BF. I don't remember what the occasion was or why he thought they might want extra capacity but I do recall that BF were cancelling passenger bookings because of the government contract. So this comment may or may not be relevant :-) but it does suggest that HMG did, and might again, have some reliance on BF.
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ALBF ........

I think that you’re missing the point.

It’s no good lecturing me and everybody else about the desirability of using BF as a ‘western Channel’ operator. The fact is that most haulage firms use either the Tunnel or Dover-Calais ferries.

For BF, freight represents just 15% of their business. Accordingly when the 85% gets hit by a disaster (this year’s revenue will apparently be c. 25% of plan), then you’ve got a major problem. Most businesses would have gone bust by now ....... and sadly, many have.

They’ll survive, I hope and expect. But there’ll be some rationalisation of routes and frequencies until demand begins to return to something like 2019 levels. That could well take five years.

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Correction for you...

The fact is that most haulage firms use ALL ports depending on the destination of the goods and driver hour constraints.

The point I am making is that the closure of BF will have an impact on food and commodity prices in the UK and transit times.

An agricultural producer in Brittany delivering to a Bristol warehouse does not want to drive all the way to Calais.

Lets assume BF ships 400 lorries a day across all its sailings.

A lorry is about 14 metres long. So in effect, you are adding an extra 6 kms of lorry traffic through either Dover or Calais.
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Gardian wrote "The fact is that most haulage firms use either the Tunnel or Dover-Calais ferries".

Well yes they do, and looking ahead to next year, this is going to cause problems.

It would be a great help if not every lorry had to join the queue heading for Folkestone/Dover.

Then again, the queues may be vastly reduced if a lot of UK operators can't get permits to truck in the EU.

Same applies to ferry passengers, will they face long delays at Dover?

At this point we can only guess at the chaos to come, but it just seems that this is a bad time to potentially be losing alternative routes.
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Indeed ET.

Also, it only takes strong winds in the straits, a few cancelled sailings, a technical fault on the tunnel. Or even another fire ! and the backlog of trucks will be critical for the UK.

Not forgetting or course, Fisherman blockading Calais. Which will happen.

Like I said in my first post, Boris and his numpty Brexit voters need BF to remain in business. Starting signing your names folks.

I bet the UK ends up subsidising BF.

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I simply don't get it either, @Gardian.

All I'm getting from your posts, is that you're saying that Dover Calais is by far the most frequently used route. I'm not arguing about that. It's a fact. Even Raab understood it after he'd visited Dover.

My issue is that I think the fact that the UK is so dependent on the Dover-Calais crossing is likely to become a problem after Brexit. So I think it would be good to have alternatives.

So that is good news, Nick. It'll save jobs and it'll maintain a service that may become more useful in the future.
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I simply don't get your point either, @Gardian.

All I am getting from your posts, is that you're saying that Dover Calais is by far the most frequently used route. I'm not arguing about that. It's a fact. Even Raab understood it after he'd visited Dover.

Bu( you seem to think this is a perfectly satisfactory situation, and if even more traffic is sent to Dover it will still be hunky dory. My issue is that I think the fact that the UK is so dependent on the Dover-Calais crossing is likely to become a problem, therefore I think it would be good to keep alternatives open and if possible to increase them.

So that is good news Nick.
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“Le montant total de l'enveloppe dédiée au secteur s'élève à 30 millions d'euros. La moitié est destinée à Brittany Ferries. Avec la quarantaine britannique, la compagnie maritime bretonne a du désarmer deux navires supplémentaires, dont celui de la ligne Portsmouth / St Malo.

Le gouvernement va débloquer environ 30 millions d'euros afin de "sauvegarder" les compagnies de ferries, dont la moitié pour Brittany Ferries, en difficulté en raison des conséquences de la crise du Covid-19, a annoncé mardi Jean Castex.

"Nous avons décidé de rembourser l'intégralité des cotisations salariales, comme le demandent les professionnels, pour l'exercice 2021", a indiqué le Premier ministre devant l'Assemblée nationale, en assurant que ce geste représentait quelque 30 millions d'euros.”

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ET .........

Sorry if I gave that impression - it was not intended.

To be clear over my take on all this, the last thing I would want to see would be the demise of BF. We travel with them regularly and have done so for years.

However, to suggest that if they were to go under, it would lead to logjam in Kent is probably a little wide of the mark. Of course, HMG would prefer them to come through this, but has other priorities than bailing out a French ferry firm.

BTW, as well as the €30m from the French government, Normandy & Brittany are putting up a further €85m. Good news.

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"if they were to go under, it would lead to logjam in Kent"

I think we can take it there will be logjams in Kent come January, whatever happens with BF.

But with no BF, they would be that bit longer.

Then again you could say, does it make much difference if they are 6,812 lorries in a queue or 6,207 lorries in a queue? I suppose not.

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You don't have to wait until January...

There is/was a ten hour delay today. That is before Brexit.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8739045/Thousands-motorists-heading-Europe-facing-TEN-HOUR-delays-Dover-security-checks.html

Nope, not buying it. Dover and Calais are going to become a nightmare with or without BF.

Bear in mind my former career was dealing with all this. And yes, I used truckline (BF) on a daily basis with our trucks..

Another thing, if I was a foreign haulage company I would not accept work to the UK.

Lorry companies need to make money. You don't make money with your trucks stood still in a queue for hours and days.

I cant imagine anyone wanting to do the UK routes. Unless people pay.
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ALBF wrote: "I cant imagine anyone wanting to do the UK routes."

That is what I'm thinking. A lot of UK hauliers won't have licences for the EU. EU hauliers won't be keen to do UK routes. Traffic will drop and the problem will resolve itself - at the expense of trade. Great Britain will become more and more insular.There will be empty lorry parks all over the place and "smart" motorways that aren't needed because traffic volumes have reduced. What a waste of taxpayers' money.

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Wanna bet? I just love all the keyboard experts giving their forecasts and hopes because it's what they want. Well sorry to let you know, but over 17 million of those who voted and could be bothered to get off their backsides and vote feel differently, and are very happy. I'll tell you now as I've said before, not my choice but I support the democratic majority.
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You confuse me Nick, this thread's about saving Brittany Ferries but I can't see what your post has to do with BF or cross-Channel traffic in general. Nor do I see why there is a need for hostility and aggression when you're actually very happy.

Come on, we're all making an effort to keep the forum alive here - it's going to be difficult if we can't debate constructively and civilly and without making it personal and jumping on a poster just because you see things differently. Think about it.
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No hostility at all, just my viewpoint that you and ALBF are just trashing the UK and making unfounded claims. Nobody knows what is going to happen and I feel your comments are inflammatory. Obviously you don't think so, but want to jump on any comment that doesn't toe your line. If you don't want a reply, fine, I'll drop out and keep my opinions to myself, night night.
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