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SWANSEA FERRY: Who pays, where does it dock, and how does it hit 60 knots? — councillors sharpen their questions as leader hails “remarkable” support

The two councillors who forced the Swansea ferry report into the open have set out the questions they want answered when its authors face a scrutiny panel — from who pays for the prototype to whether a 60-knot vessel could dock on the Devon coast at all.

The council-funded report behind the proposed crossing was published in full last week, projecting £15 fares, up to 800,000 visitors a year and a vessel faster than the current world record holder.

Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Chris Holley — a long-standing supporter of a Bristol Channel crossing — is calling the report into his scrutiny panel, with Ocean Prime Industries invited to answer for it in person.

Cllr Holley told Swansea Bay News that nobody can answer the questions hanging over the plan “until this company can come in front of my own scrutiny board”.

His list starts with the vessel itself: how a ferry reaches a 60-knot top speed — faster than any commercial ferry ever built.

Then the money: who funds the working prototype promised within the next two years — the councils, or the Welsh Government? Cllr Holley believes funding for a project of this scale must come from central government, not local taxpayers.

Then the destination: no berthing infrastructure currently exists on the Devon and Somerset side, he said, and building it would cost millions.

And then history. When Swansea last had a ferry — the Cork crossing — much of its traffic simply “turned right to go onto the M4 and left Swansea”, he said, questioning whether 800,000 arrivals would translate into a visitor boom for the city rather than driving straight past it.

He also wants answers on how passengers without cars would connect onwards by bus. A date for the scrutiny session has yet to be set.

Cllr Brigitte Rowlands — an independent (unaffiliated) councillor, whose written question to full council forced the report’s publication — said the council leader should be “honest and open with the residents of Swansea” about the project.

She said a vessel of the size described “would struggle to dock on the Devon coastline”.

“In principle the idea is very appealing,” she said. “The reality is going to be difficult to achieve.”

Scrutiny of the plan, she added, is essential “so the taxpayer in Swansea has good value for money should the project ever set sail”.

“What real research has been done? Who has been in discussion regarding the project on both sides of the water? So many unanswered questions.”

The question of engagement across the water is not new. In March last year, Francesca O’Brien — then a Conservative councillor, now the Reform UK Member of the Senedd for Gŵyr Abertawe — told the council chamber that her group at the time had contacted Devon’s council directly about the project, and that its cabinet member was not aware of any recent correspondence.

Devon was consulting on its strategic transport investment plan at the time. “No pun intended — we’ve missed the boat on that consultation over there,” she said. “That’s a great shame.”

She asked how serious the council was about the project and who the stakeholders in its working group were — saying that as far as she could see, the councils on the English side had had no correspondence since January 2022.

Labour council leader Cllr Rob Stewart told her then that the council was “very keen” for the ferry to go ahead — “but of course we don’t control all of the elements to make it happen” — pointing to the technology, a suitable vessel and port infrastructure on both sides of the channel.

The council’s chief executive told the same meeting that no commercial operators had come forward when the project was first explored, and that the consultation was designed to assess demand before going back to the market.

On the hydrogen ambition, the leader acknowledged a “chicken and egg” problem — not enough demand yet to build a refuelling network — saying the hydrogen option “is the aim eventually, but we’re probably away from that at this point in time”.

They are not the only ones with questions. Uplands Party councillor Cllr Stuart Rice said the report’s mistaken claim that the science fiction author Isaac Asimov backed a Minehead pier project — the town’s celebrated writer is in fact Arthur C. Clarke — summed the document up. In March, he had asked whether the plan was “more of a fairy story than a ferry story”.

“The reference in the report to Isaac Asimov truly shows what a science fiction this ‘Ferry’ story is,” he said. “Can we trust its findings given some of the statements made and figures included in the report?”

“I will continue to ask questions about this and welcome the scrutiny it is due to receive — as it certainly deserves it. We need to make sure that public money is spent wisely and not wasted on chasing any more white elephants and pipe dreams.”

For his part, Cllr Stewart points to the strength of public feeling behind the idea.

“The response has been remarkable,” he wrote in the report’s foreword. “More than 4,300 people and organisations took part in the consultation, with overwhelming support for exploring the idea further.”

“What stands out most clearly from the findings is the level of enthusiasm for a transport option that could significantly reduce journey times by up to half or better, while avoiding congestion on major road routes such as the M4 and M5.”

“People also recognise the importance of developing cleaner forms of transport that support our environmental ambitions and help tackle climate change.”

The consultation ran from October 2024 to February 2025 through the project’s own website, with 4,396 people and organisations taking part and 97.8 per cent expressing support.

Swansea Bay News put questions about the report’s figures — including a carbon-saving claim that appears to overstate the true number by a factor of one hundred — to Swansea Council and Ocean Prime last week. Responses are still awaited.

The scrutiny session will be the first time the report’s claims are formally examined.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

SWANSEA FERRY: Report promising 800,000 visitors and £600m heads for scrutiny — as its own numbers face questions
The full report behind the crossing — and the figures that don’t add up.

FERRY FARCE? Doubts grow over Swansea crossing as ‘fairy story’ jibe lands
The March council exchange where the first cracks in the plan appeared.

Ferry plan gathers pace as 98% back Swansea crossing
The consultation result at the heart of the report’s claims of public support.

SWANSEA FERRY: Report promising 800,000 visitors and £600m heads for scrutiny — as its own numbers face questions

The report behind the proposed Swansea to south-west England ferry has been published in full for the first time — and it is heading straight for a council scrutiny panel.

The OceanJet Line consultation report, funded by Swansea Council through a £24,999.95 Shared Prosperity Fund grant, was released as an appendix to Thursday’s full council papers.

It sets out an ambitious vision: hydrogen-electric vessels with a target top speed of 60 knots, fares from £15, 20 sailings a day, and a crossing from Swansea to north Devon in around an hour. Ocean Prime Industries, the company behind the plan, says it aims to build a small working prototype this year, with the first vessel in service by 2030.

The performance target is unprecedented. The fastest ferry ever to enter service — the gas turbine-powered HSC Francisco — holds the Guinness World Record at 58.1 knots. The world’s first commercial hydrogen ferry, launched in San Francisco in 2024, carries 75 passengers at a top speed of 15 knots.

In the report, Ocean Prime chief executive Dave Sampson writes that the project “is no longer just about a ferry”, describing it as “a nationally significant strategic infrastructure initiative, on a par with HS2”.

Council leader Cllr Rob Stewart contributed a foreword, describing the response to the consultation as “remarkable” — 4,396 people and organisations took part in the online survey, run through the project’s own website, with 97.8 per cent expressing support.

At full maturity, with a fleet of eight vessels, the report projects more than £600 million a year in visitor economy benefits for Swansea — built on an assumption of up to 800,000 new visitors annually from a single vessel.

But some of the report’s own figures do not appear to add up.

The report claims a single vessel would avoid “around 290,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year” by replacing car journeys. Using the report’s own numbers — roughly 800,000 car journeys replaced, at the 3.6kg of CO2 per journey it cites from Department for Transport data — the total is around 2,900 tonnes a year, one hundredth of the figure claimed.

The report also names the science fiction author Isaac Asimov as a supporter of the Millennium Pier project in Minehead. Asimov died in 1992 — before the Minehead Pier 2000 Association, whose £5 million lottery-funded rebuild plan was later rejected, had even been formed, according to the National Piers Society.

Minehead’s celebrated science fiction son is in fact Arthur C. Clarke, the 2001: A Space Odyssey author born in the town in 1917.

Swansea Bay News has put the figures to Ocean Prime and Swansea Council. The council asked for time until Monday to answer the questions; both responses will be reported when they arrive.

The report’s publication came in response to a written question from Cllr Brigitte Rowlands, who told the council the feasibility study remained incomplete, no destination ports had been identified, no vessel technology research had been undertaken, and there was no evidence of UK or Welsh Government involvement in planning on the English side of the channel.

Cllr Stewart’s written answer said engagement had included discussions with UK Government and stakeholders on the English side, and that research into the vessel concept had been undertaken — while conceding that “no final technical solution has been confirmed”.

In the chamber, Cllr Rowlands said the response had not really answered her question, and that the project did not seem to be progressing very far.

Cllr Stewart said the response was factual, stressed the ferry was not a council-operated scheme but one of many the council was actively supporting, and said a project of this scale — involving potential port developments on both sides of the estuary and a new fleet of hydrogen-powered vessels — could not be delivered overnight.

Cllr Stuart Rice pressed the leader for examples of similar schemes Ocean Prime had successfully delivered, and asked of the HS2 comparison: “Do they mean HS2 to Leeds or Manchester?” In March, Rice asked whether the plan was “more of a fairy story than a ferry story”.

Cllr Stewart said the individuals involved had expertise in marine and submarine design, but that he was not sighted on what they had previously delivered. The HS2 comparison, he said, was with the original concept of the line: cutting journey times — a three-hour drive to the south west against a crossing of about an hour.

Public records shed some light. Companies House shows Ocean Prime Industries Ltd was incorporated in August 2022, is registered to an address in St Albans, Hertfordshire, and lists its nature of business as “business and domestic software development”. The company has two directors — Mr Sampson, and Jami Buckley, whose country of residence is recorded as Canada.

There was a history lesson too, with Cllr Wendy Lewis recalling the council’s last venture into ferries — a reference to millions handed over when Swansea last backed a crossing to Ireland.

Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Chris Holley — a long-standing supporter of a Bristol Channel crossing — said there was a mountain of questions to ask, and confirmed he would be calling the report into a scrutiny meeting, with its authors invited to attend and answer them.

Cllr Holley said he had believed the report was produced for the council and should have appeared on a council agenda in its own right.

The scrutiny session will be the first time the report’s claims are formally examined since the hydrogen ferry was first announced. A public consultation opened in 2024, with 98 per cent backing reported earlier this year.

Burry Port has emerged as a surprise potential landing site — though Carmarthenshire Council said in March it had held no discussions on specific proposals relating to the county.

For a plan its backers compare to HS2, the scrutiny room may be where the ferry’s future is decided — fairy story or not.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

FERRY FARCE? Doubts grow over Swansea crossing as ‘fairy story’ jibe lands
The March council exchange where the first cracks in the plan appeared.

Ferry plan gathers pace as 98% back Swansea crossing
The consultation result at the heart of the report’s claims of public support.

Burry Port ferry harbour emerges as surprise option in cross-channel plan
How the Carmarthenshire harbour quietly entered the crossing conversation.

FERRY FARCE? Doubts grow over Swansea crossing as ‘fairy story’ jibe lands

The proposed Bristol Channel crossing – linking Swansea with south-west England – has been talked up as a game-changer for travel and jobs.

But cracks are starting to show.

At a tense council meeting this week, opposition councillor Stuart Rice questioned whether the scheme was realistic at all, asking leader Rob Stewart if it was “more of a fairy story than a ferry story”.

The comments come just days after a new report suggested the idea had a “compelling” economic case and overwhelming public backing, with strong support recorded for a Swansea-based service.

The proposal centres on a high-speed, low-emission ferry capable of carrying hundreds of passengers and vehicles across the Bristol Channel – with backers claiming it could slash journey times and ease pressure on major roads.

But despite the optimism, key details remain missing.

No ports have been confirmed.

No vessel has been designed.

And no firm agreements are in place with partners across the water.

Even Swansea Council has admitted in responses seen by reporters that no formal discussions have taken place with councils in Devon or Somerset in recent years.

That raises serious questions about how close – or how far – the plan really is.

Cllr Stewart defended the project, insisting it was worth exploring.

“I don’t think there is anything really to knock on this one,” he said, arguing journey times could be cut dramatically and that Swansea’s appeal would draw visitors.

He also stressed the ferry would not just be about passengers – but freight too, boosting its viability.

But others are not convinced.

Liberal Democrat group leader Chris Holley backed the idea in principle but warned there were practical issues – including whether vessels could even dock close to the city centre.

He pointed to past problems with ferry schemes, including vessels being unable to pass through Swansea’s lock gates.

Meanwhile, concerns have also been raised that passengers could simply drive straight out of the city via the M4 – limiting the economic boost locally.

Adding to the uncertainty, the report behind the plans admits major hurdles remain.

These include dealing with the Bristol Channel’s extreme tidal range, designing specialist vessels, and building the necessary port infrastructure.

And in a new twist, Burry Port has quietly emerged as a potential landing site – despite there being no detail yet on how a ferry could operate from a harbour known for having one of the highest tidal ranges in the world.

Now, Carmarthenshire Council has confirmed it has not been involved in any talks.

Director Ainsley Williams said: “There have been no discussions on specific proposals relating directly to Carmarthenshire at this time.

“We remain open to further discussions should any formal proposals come forward.”

That lack of engagement will raise eyebrows given the scale of what’s being suggested.

Elsewhere, questions remain about where the ferry would land in England, with Ilfracombe already ruled out and larger ports like Bideford mentioned as alternatives.

For now, the ferry remains firmly in the “idea” stage.

And while supporters point to potential benefits like cutting congestion on the M4 and M5 and boosting tourism, critics say the fundamentals are still missing.

For people across Swansea Bay, it leaves a simple question.

Is this the start of a bold new transport link – or just another grand plan that never leaves the drawing board?

What do you think – ferry future or fairy tale?

Brynymor Road reopens after sinkhole drama

Road back in action

The busy route was shut after a gaping hole appeared near Brynymor Crescent, sparking fears of underground mine workings and leaving businesses counting the cost of lost footfall.

Investigations have now confirmed the fault was caused by an old manhole collapsing beneath the surface. Swansea Council’s highways maintenance teams have carried out repairs, allowing traffic to return just in time for the Christmas rush.

Andrew Stevens, Cabinet Member for Environment and Infrastructure, said: “The sinkhole resulted in the council needing to implement a full road closure while we investigated the causes. Our highways maintenance teams have done an excellent job, repairing the road as quickly as they have. This should be great news for local businesses, residents and motorists who regularly use this route.”

Councillors welcome swift action

Uplands Party councillors praised the council’s response but acknowledged the disruption.

Cllr Peter May said: “I would like to thank the council teams for their prompt investigation work and repair on this. When a sinkhole opens, there are a lot of unknowns to examine before any repair can be carried out. It has certainly had an impact on the local area.”

Cllr Stuart Rice added: “We have been working with local traders on Brynymor Road to try and mitigate the effect that the sinkhole had on footfall. Hopefully it will now be business as usual again for them in the crucial run up to Christmas.”

From mystery to repair

The sinkhole saga gripped the Uplands for weeks, with speculation about possible mine links and councillors warning the collapse was larger than first thought. Swansea Bay News reported extensively on the closure, from the initial shock to the investigation and the promise of repairs before Christmas.

Now, with the road back open, attention turns to recovery for local businesses and reassurance for residents who watched a key city route vanish beneath their feet.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

Sinkhole mystery solved: collapse blamed on old manhole
Investigations revealed the cause of the Brynymor Crescent sinkhole and hopes for a pre‑Christmas reopening.

Council investigates possible mine link to Brynymor Crescent sinkhole
Early fears suggested historic mine workings could be to blame for the collapse.

Brynymor Road sinkhole larger than expected, says councillor
Councillors warned the collapse was more extensive than first thought.

Sinkhole forces road closure in Swansea’s Brynymor Road
The initial shock closure that disrupted traffic and businesses in the Uplands.

#BrynymorCrescent #BrynymorRoad #CllrAndrewStevens #CllrPeterMay #CllrStuartRice #roadClosure #Sinkhole #SwanseaCouncil #SwanseaSinkhole #Uplands