Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

If you haven’t already heard, later this year a new event aimed as a tribute to Britain’s serving armed forces makes its way to Yarmouth.

The event, titled Sailing for Heroes, has been organised by the Yarmouth Harbour Commissioners with support from the Royal Solent Yacht Club.

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It’s that time of year again, prior to the holiday season when maintenance of Yarmouth Bridge takes place.

The council inform us that next week there’ll be a three day road closure at Yarmouth Bridge.

The road will be closed on 2, 3 and 4 March as the bridge’s landing pads are replaced.

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According to the BBC, over 200 people made their way to the recruitment fair at Norton Grange Coastal Village in Yarmouth yesterday in the hope of finding work.

The holiday park has undergone a massive refurbishment and have around 100 new jobs on offer.

Best of luck to everyone who applied.

via BBC

Looks like all cross-Solent ferries are running normally today (excluding the timetable changes to WightLink we reported yesterday).

Hovertravel are warning that there may be disruption, so recommend calling them on 811000 prior to travel to get the latest.

We’ll let you know if we hear of any changes to the services.

Image: Air Babble under CC BY-SA 2.0

Blimey, it’s blowing a hoolie out there today and the weather is understandably affecting the cross-Solent travel.

Here’s the latest we’re aware of.

Hover Travel
The service between Ryde and Southsea is suspended until further notice.

Red Funnel
Both Red Jet 3 and Red Jet 4 are running approximately 10 minutes late due to the current weather conditions.

Sailings of the car ferry is unaffected by the bad weather conditions

Wightlink
As we reported at the weekend, the Portsmouth to Fishbourne service is running hourly today.

No problems reported on the Fast Cat.

The latest in from WightLink warns of disruption to sailings on Lymington-Yarmouth car ferry service and Portsmouth Harbour-Ryde Pier Head catamaran service due to the severe weather forecast for today (13 November) and tomorrow (14 November).

If you haven’t already seen them, the last of the statutory notices stemming from the school reorganisation have been published.

Statutory notices for Brading CE Primary and St Helens Primary are published today with the notices for Shalfleet CE Primary and Yarmouth CE Primary following next week.

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If you’re looking for some firework night action tonight then there are three places we know of that you can head to.

Sandown
Due to the bad weather in the summer, Sandown’s illuminated carnival had to be cancelled. As so much hard work had gone into creation of the floats and costumes, the Carnival Committee have decided to hold the illuminated parade tonight prior to a firework display from Sandown Pier.

At 6pm The 14″ Remotes will be playing tracks from their debut album at The King’s House on the terrace overlooking Sandown Bay.

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If you’ve had your head in the sand over the last three weeks you won’t have realised that it is Isle of Pink month.

October is the one month in the year when the Isle of Wight goes pink to show it’s support for Breast Cancer Campaign.

There have been many fund-raising events take place in the last three weeks and half term will be no exception.

Isle of Pink Party Walk
Half terms activities start with Isle of Pink Party Walk around the Western Yar on Saturday.

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We’re finding it hard to keep up with all these changes on the Wightlink ferries this weekend.

Wightlink now tell us that “due to operational reasons” the 21:05 (9:05pm) from Lymington and the 21:50 (9:50 pm) from Yarmouth today (Sunday 11 October) will be cancelled.

Blooming ‘eck, it’s quite bizarre how both Red Funnel and Wightlink are having technical problems with one of their vehicle ferries at the moment.

As readers will remember Wightlink advised us that there would be cancellations of sailings between Lymington and Yarmouth today. They now tell us that these the timetable will continue to be hit with cancellations over the weekend and on Monday. They’re contacted us again to let us know that it’s all OK now and there won’t be cancellations – in their words “Please be advised that all sailings on the Lymington-Yarmouth Car Ferry Service are now running to their advertised sailing times.” Confusing isn’t it?

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Oh dear, it’s not just Red Funnel who are having problems with their car ferries at the moment.

If you’re planning to travel to and from the Island tomorrow, you’d be best to check the details below because it looks like WightLink passengers are going to be disrupted as well.

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Following the strike at the end of August, many postal workers on the Isle of Wight will be holding strike action again today.

The workers are objecting to changes in working practices and full-time jobs being reduced to part-time jobs without agreement.

The strike will affect Cowes, East Cowes, Newport and Yarmouth, as well as surrounding villages.

Image: August strike action by Chris Ash

It’s been an exciting day for the police on the Island today.

Shortly before 8.30am this morning, someone walked into Yarmouth Police Station carrying what were described by the police as two mortar shells.

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The Lymington River Association (LRA), who were due to take legal action against Wightlink in the High Court have delayed their legal action, it is reported.

Many on the Island, particularly those whose business depend on visitors coming to the Island, will be relieved that the court date has been moved past the summer holiday break, as they feared that the court action may have disrupted ferry sailings from Lymington to Yarmouth.

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How amazing are the people who live on the Isle of Wight?

The latest to surface is Yarmouth resident Bob Paynter, who filmed Michael Jackson’s Thriller video!

Bob – who has been living on the Island for the last 16 years – landed the job as he’d previously worked with John Landis, who directed Thriller, on previous films such as Trading Places.

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We hear that the lovely Lucid will be playing at The Old Gaffers festival tomorrow.

As mentioned earlier, there’s loads to do at the festival and the weather forecast is fabulous for tomorrow.

Lucid will be taking to the stage are 2pm, so make you get there in time to catch their wonderful harmonies.

Lucid are made up by Blue and Sunny Brown (who you might remember from amongst other things, the Ventnor production of We Will Rock You), who play along side guitarist/vocalist Ollie Dulcie, with Nick Potts on violin and Dave Shelton on drums.

There’s less than two weeks to go until the 50th anniversary of the Old Gaffers Festival in Yarmouth.

Taking place over the weekend at the end of the half term holiday, this festival has something for everyone.

As well as the sailing races that take place, there is also lots for land lovers to do and see.

Enjoy the farmers’ market, there’ll be morris dancing, street performers, a wide range of live music including the Wight Satin Ladies Barbershop Singers, Unity Stompers, Lucid, traditional Irish music, a Caribbean Melody Steel Band, a male voice choir, samba band, as well as singing from Yarmouth School Children and even Derek Sandy. There’ll be marching bands, a beer festival, a dog show and loads more.

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Quick note to let yawl know that Yarmouth swing bridge re-opened yesterday afternoon after a period of repair.

It’s currently operating as a single lane, controlled by traffic lights, but, hey, it’s open.

This Bank Holiday Sunday, 3rd May 2009, sees the 25th annual Isle of Wight Randonnee.

It’s an organised free cycle tour around the Island – actually it’s two routes, a 100Km one following the Round-the-Island cycle route, taking minor roads and lanes where possible and a 55Km route around the north east of the Island, both anti-clockwise.

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We had to look twice to check the time of the release when we read the following just out from the Isle of Wight Council.

Apparently the swing bridge at Yarmouth, which all vehicles from the west have to travel over to gain access to Yarmouth is due to be closed to vehicles for five weeks from 14 April.

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Following an independent review into five of the Island’s primary schools, a report issued to the Isle of Wight Council recommends that at least four of the schools federate in order to remain on their existing sites.

The report, which Standards Not Tiers fully endorses, will be presented to the Cabinet at the end of the month (31 March), when a decision on the future of the schools will be made.

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There can’t be many people living on the isle of Wight who don’t know what a gribble is.

Last year the wonderful Yarmouth Pier had it’s supports replaced after irrevocable damage was caused by the hungry gribble worms. As far as wood in water goes, the gribble worm is a bit of a disaster as many a fisherman will know from having to scrub them off the bottom of their boats.

So who would have thought that this pesky little isopod might be the key to a revolution in liquid bio-fuels?

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Following the news on the front page of the County Press last week that Wightlink may pull the Yarmouth-Lymington service, Island MP Andrew Turner has taken action by not only writing to DeFRA but also tabled questions in Parliament. Ed

Andrew Turner has written to Huw Irranca-Davies, a minister in the Dept of Food, Environment and Agriculture (DEFRA) seeking a firm undertaking from him that the needs of the Island will be taken into account in looking at the future of the Yarmouth to Lymington ferry service.

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With only just over a week to go until the Breast Cancer Campaign’s Friendship Walk, if you haven’t already, do make sure to get your registration in.

It’s all part of the month long Isle of Pink Campaign taking place across the Wight.

The two and half hour walk from Yarmouth to Freshwater, which is about five miles is a great opportunity to raise sponsorship, make new friends and help make a difference.

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