The owner\u00a0of Cardiff’s largest water bus firm has called for a single company to operate on the city’s waterways.<\/p>\n
Steve Woodward, the director of Aquabus, says Cardiff Harbour Authority need to set up a franchise system to attract more investors.<\/p>\n
An estimated two hundred thousand people have travelled on Cardiff’s waterways in the last year.<\/p>\n
Mr Woodward believes water buses have the potential of becoming useful for commuters. He says, “It’s a completely underused waterway at the moment. Nearly all of our customers are tourists, or local visitors. There’s virtually no commuter traffic at all.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I think because Cardiff is a capital city, it deserves a 21st century waterway system.<\/p>\n
“But it’s unfair to ask the private sector to invest massive amounts of money unless there’s a new licencing or franchising type of arrangement – otherwise people just won’t invest.”<\/p>\n
But Mr Woodward’s suggestions have been met with criticism from other water bus operators.<\/p>\n
Steve Critchley started his business eighteen years ago with his boat Princess Royal.<\/p>\n
He says having a larger franchise on Cardiff’s waterways would be dangerous for smaller businesses: “If one operator has the franchise, what happens to the others? Do we get put out of business?<\/p>\n
“I just think that the free enterprise that we have now, works well for so many people.”<\/p>\n
Cardiff Harbour Authority are responsible for deciding how much Cardiff’s waterways will be regulated. They\u00a0were approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The owner\u00a0of Cardiff’s largest water bus firm has called for a single company to operate on the city’s waterways. Steve Woodward, the director of Aquabus, says Cardiff Harbour Authority need to set up a franchise system to attract more investors. An estimated two hundred thousand people have travelled on Cardiff’s waterways in the last year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[743,744],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15874"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15954,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874\/revisions\/15954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}