Shields Ferry: Ministers asked for £13m to save service

Government ministers are being asked for nearly £13m to help save a ferry service.

The North Shields landing of the Shields Ferry will have deteriorated into an unusable state by 2025, operator Nexus says.

Transport bosses hope to build a new jetty but have been hampered by financial struggles.

A bid for £12.76m will be made to the Department for Transport (DfT), said Nexus.

Inflation levels have seen the cost of the scheme - which would see a new jetty closer to the North Shields Fish Quay - jump from £8.8m, which was originally expected.

Local officials want the DfT to release funding from a devolution deal early to build the new landing, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

North Tyneside's deputy mayor Carl Johnson warned if the ferry were to close down the region would "never get it back".

Nexus, which also runs the Tyne and Wear Metro, previously lost £5.6m from the government's Getting Building Fund because it could not meet a "strict" timescale which would have required building works to be finished by spring 2022.

The proposed new ferry landing then formed part of a Levelling Up Fund bid for a wider regeneration of North Shields, which was unsuccessful.

It is also possible some leftover funding from the Metro Flow project, a £100m dualling of a section of the rail line, could be used to top up the ferry landing pot if needed.

Gateshead Council leader Martin Gannon, who chairs the JTC, said the Shields Ferry was "important to all of us" and "very much a part of the region's integrated transport network".

Figures revealed last week showed how the number of journeys on the ferry was more than 30% higher than transport chiefs had expected in 2022-23.

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