Hi, I'm Chanel, one of the journalists at Meng's Radio. Welcome to the latest edition of Meng's Radio Newscast. Right, can I get your name, please? It's Erich Korkish. Right now, we've got the public transport strategy that government are going to start introducing or working on later in the year. When you hear public transport, you know, being a resident in the north, are there any issues that you can think of? Well, one of the main issues is being disabled and being able to get onto the buses. They have the shuttle bus that goes around the town, but again, they have the lift on the back, but it can't lift the mobility suit, there's even small mobility suit, as well. So I'm told, I've never tried. There is a lot of people, I live in the shelter housing in Ramsey, and there's a lot of people actually use that shuttle bus, or the doctors to go shopping the dentist, you know, and some of them I believe go out into the country, maybe to visit people, but it's just a case of the book to time, but whether that time is available or not. Right, as a mobility scooter user, do you find it a bit difficult to get around? Extremely difficult, if you just go off the buses for a minute, if you go to Ramsey now, there's a lot more people using mobility scooters, and the drop curbs in Ramsey are absolutely ridiculous, and it doesn't matter how many times you ask them to be repaired, they do not get repaired. The case where they laid a new road, a new pavement on Derby Road, a couple of years ago, and put no drop curbs in, and if you go along that pavement, now you just come to an end where you can't go no further and you have to turn around and go back again, and nothing you seem to do, nothing changes that situation. So if you're trying to navigate yourself in the town, right, in terms of the drop curbs, how far are they from one another? Do you have to travel maybe five extra minutes to get to another drop? No, in Ramsey it's not too bad, if you're in the street there is drop curbs there, but so many of them are broken. I mean, I seen the situation a couple of years ago where a seriously disabled young person was stuck, because his wheelchair could not get up that ramp, and his carer, and other people had to lift that wheelchair onto the pavement for them, and that is a ridiculous situation, and this is between the two worst are the ones at the small co-op and Lloyd's Bank, and they're absolutely ridiculous. It'd been like this for years, it doesn't matter how many times you talk to people, they haven't been repaired, and if you go to the Commission, they tell you that it's the DOI, and if you go to the DOI, nothing happens. Why do you think they don't want to take responsibility for it? Well, being honest, being honest, the DOI don't listen, they don't listen about anything, and it doesn't matter what you do with them, you never get anywhere, and if you think about it, in the last six years they've had five different ministers in charge of the DOI, it's just like the buses, another one will come along soon, and how can they possibly have the work done properly when ministers are changing all the time, and when they are ministers, they don't want to talk to you. If you mention disabled, another question is, I am pretty sure on this, why did Alf Cannon not appoint a disabled champion? Because he hasn't done it, he has all the other champions for children, and whatever you like that's there, he did not appoint a disabled champion, it used to be when Howard Quail was there, it was Kenny Sharp, the MLC, and she was a disabled champion, there isn't one anymore, why was that? Is it because they would bring problems that the government didn't want to solve? But this is your community, you still have to, you know, you've got different types of people in your community, you still have to see to the needs of all of them. Yeah, but I mean, drop curbs, it's pretty essential, isn't it? I mean, we all know the age of the people in the Isle of Man are all a lot older, you've only got to look around, you'd see how many more mobile digital scooters are going around, but they're not doing anything for them, they don't do anything with the disabled. Does it, you as a mobility scooter, does it kind of discourage you on certain days where you feel like, oh I'd rather stay indoors, I want to go out, but because I know the issues I'm going to face in my journey, I'd prefer, let me just stay at home. Well, some days you feel like that, but a lot of times is that because you live there, you get used to where you can and can't go, you know, and that's what you have to do, and you know, even like you say, sometimes you take a detour to get to where you wanted to go to in the first place. Does that, when you said, you know, sometimes you have to decide where you can and can't go, does that, has it made you have to limit your own options? Yes, in some things, there is, you know, there is some place you just cannot go to, you know, and it's it's not right in this day and age. I mean, to be absolutely honest, the one of the things you're hearing about now, all the time, and it's on the manner line, it was internal of the SD or ASK, SD, is the assisted dying. When are they going to have assisted living for disabled people, because it isn't any assisted living at the moment, if you want them, you have to fight tooth and nail together, you know, and the majority of times you don't get it, you know, so assisted dying, yes, go ahead without if you want to, but how about helping the disabled people, you know, I mean, one example of it where it works absolutely fantastic is Rong's Way Airport, you go down there to get a plane, they have the assisted travel, you go in and you see the person and they take it right out to the airplane. Now, that happens everywhere, Liverpool have been to Spain this year, and every way you go, they've got this assisted travel and it works really well. When I was getting to Liverpool, because, you know, with the flights, you have to stay overnight to get the plane, staying in the hotel at the airport, and I went to the bus station, to the buses, and I said, can I get on this, because I had the whole day to pull in, and the driver said, no, you can't have a mobility scooter, so I went to the next bus, asked the same question, and they said, no, you can't have a mobility scooter, so I rang a river transport, because I'd seen their website, and they said they had a mobility scooter, spoke to the person there, she said, send me an email with the details of your mobility scooter, which I did ten minutes later, I had an email, and I showed it to the bus driver, and I was on that bus. Now, they can sort out something that I've been trying to sort out since September 2019, they can sort that out in ten minutes, you know, and it's a bit ironic really, isn't it, that you can travel on a mobility scooter on a plane, but you can't have done a bus, you know, how does that work out, and in Liverpool and in Spain, you can travel on the bus, the train, the tram, absolutely no problems, people there to help you, special seating for you to be in, and this thing that always come up about the mobility scooters might move, they don't anywhere else, is only the Isle of Man where mobility scooters move on the bus. Are you, now that we're going to start looking at the transport strategy, are you maybe a little bit hopeful that it's something that they will start to look and take into consideration? Well, again, this comes back to something that happened, it was last year, or early, or late year before, when Chris Thomas was a minister, and they formed a committee, they asked for people to go on this committee that were disabled, so that they could get all this up and run, I applied to go on the committee and didn't even get an interview, I'd done four years research on this and never got an interview to go on it, you know, so I'm not on it, he said at the time, and I know he isn't a minister now, that they were going to run trials for buses, endless on two routes, as it happened, nobody knows, because he's gone, has the new minister taken that up, you know, has the committee met, I've never seen anywhere, they've never said anything if you have met, you know, and it's just in general what the Isle of Man is to disable people, they don't care, the government do not care. I think my last question is, what is your message to government? To pull the finger out and try and do the same as everybody else does, you know, the bus services are reasonably okay, they're not brilliant, they could be on later at night, and I have spoken to bus drivers, and they have said, and I've been on a bus, so in my opinion, was driving too fast, they have a five-minute turnaround, and they have to drive that bus as fast as they can to get to Ramsey, because they've got five minutes to turn the bus around and go back again, and it's ridiculous, and they need to be looking at the timetables, they need to be looking at who's allowed on buses, and who isn't allowed on buses, and just get something done, stop talking about things and do something. Anything else you want to add or say? Anything you want to mention that I perhaps didn't in your notes? Yeah, I know a lot of people say we don't have enough of that at the moment, and as well as the waiting times. Yeah, you talking that? Yeah, one of the other things is a disabled park, and I suppose I'm aware, the last time I was down there, it hadn't changed. The disabled park, and that was where the old bus drivers used to be by Marks and Spencers, it's disabled park, and with a 30-minute limit. What disabled person can get in and out of there in 30 minutes? And the other thing is the amount of people who park, on disabled park, and the maximum find is 5,000 pounds. Why don't you take one to court and find them 5,000 pounds? That might stop everybody else doing this. You get vans in loading into shops. Well, you know, they shouldn't be doing it. They shouldn't be on a disabled parking space. The other problem we have, particularly in Rams, you know, I won't name the two companies, they park on the pavement, and you can't get past, you know, and they do it every day. I spoke to the traffic order, and he said, well, they've got to unload into the shop. Well, that doesn't mean that they park on the pavement, you know, and disabled people can't get past them. You know, but again, nobody knows anything about it. You know, disabled park, and some people say there's part too much. But to be honest, there isn't enough, and drop curbs, there isn't enough. If you go on that promenade now, Indiglas, when they did the new promenade, and I think it's from just past the Palace Hotel, up to Strathalan, there's no way of getting on that pavement. If you park your car there, and you want to get on to the pavement, or on the walkway, there's no way to do it. They didn't put any drop curbs in. Yeah, and that was brand new work. It wasn't difficult to do, but they just don't do it. It wasn't taken into consideration? No, but this is where, okay, they've set up this committee. But how many times do they actually discuss these things with them? We don't know, because nobody's ever said, and as far as I can see, nothing ever comes out of it. You know, if the committee meeting, maybe they should tell people I'm meeting, maybe they should talk to other disabled people. You know, I mean, just get your disabled. You're not entitled to everything, but there is some things that disabled people need, and one of the things is disabled housing, and I've heard of a case this week where they're trying to fit a person in the sheltered accommodation that isn't fit for purpose. It's not big enough for him to be in his wheelchair, and they're trying to fit him in, rather than fit a house to him. And if he goes into that place to live, he's going to have one hell of a life. I don't know what he's going to do in the bathroom, you know, because it's not fit for purpose. The building itself is fit for purpose. It's fit for purpose for an able-bodied person, but not for a disabled person in a wheelchair. Can I start with your name and your title? Yeah, June McGinnis, Ramsey Town Commissioner. Right, and in this capacity, are you speaking as Ramsey Town Commissioner, or in what capacity are you speaking? I suppose I'll be speaking both as a resident of the North and the Ramsey Town Commissioner, but not on behalf of Ramsey Town Commissioners. Perfect, right now. In terms of the North of the island, I know we've got a big transport strategy that's going to be released later this year. Now, before I go into the transport strategy and what you'd like to see come out of it, what are some of the issues in terms of transport in the North, or public transport in the North? The Northern Transport has moved over to this connect service for the most part. They've reduced the static routes, and I can completely understand from the DOI's perspective why they've done that. They came in and gave us a really good presentation explaining how the static routes were often empty and the cost versus reward benefits. Complete understand that. I do, however, think that there's an awful lot of residents in the Northern Parishes and Tene Ramsey who are elderly and rely upon a static route that they can understand and the connect service, the on-demand service, whilst in theory is a superior better service. I'm not sure whether it's necessarily delivering. Right now, when you say that, have you received, have residents spoken to you either in a personal capacity or in your council capacity? Yeah, I've received a number of or had a number of conversations with residents, and quite personally, I've got an 85-year-old father that lives with me and relies upon that bus service to get to medical appointments and get in town. I would say it's a real feast or famine service. When it's good, it's brilliant. The staff are fantastic. He is well-looked after and gets to exactly where he needs to go. However, when it's bad, he can't get through on the phone line. He can't book a bus, so he misses out on days going out and about or he can't rely on the necessarily to get to appointments. And I think that whilst they have the online capability for a little 85-year-old man, that's just beyond him. And that is arguably the target market of that service in the north. And how often would you say, because you don't always want to paint a bad picture, but how often would you say he does have difficulties? I wouldn't say it's the majority of the time. I think it is a good service when it is good, but of course, if you're relying on them to get to a doctor's appointment or even in the winter, maybe there's only one or two good days a week. And if you can't get through to them and you can't get into town, then as has been the case with my dad, you'll find that he just doesn't leave the house for days on end. And that can be quite damaging. I was just going to say for elderly people, you cannot be in the home the whole day. At least your dad has you. Imagine those others who just have themselves and they're just staying in isolation. Yeah, and that also expands when you go out into the villages, because obviously the service has a finite time frame. It doesn't run in the evening, it doesn't run on a Sunday. So the amount of opportunities are restricted once again. So forgive me if I don't know, but what was the reason for them to introduce the connect bus instead of the normal buses? I'm assuming they had the normal buses in place at first. Yeah, so historically the bus service out of the northern parishes was a static route or various loops. And Ramsey had this service called, well, I can't remember the official name, but we always used to call it the Skipper bus in Ramsey town that used to just do loops of all the estates and up to the hospital and back. I think from conversations with Busvan and they advised that they were finding that they were running in some of the routes, an empty bus that never received any passengers. So understandably from their perspective, if they're trying to manage costs and make a cost effective service, they can't have a bus just running when no one's using it. And the connect service seems to be a sort of pragmatic solution. Right, but now in terms of public transport in the north and with the whole public, with the transport strategy that we're going to see, what would you like to see in that strategy? I think for me personally, better port services for the north. I think that's one of the big problems. We find it very difficult to get to early morning or late night airflights or boat services through public transport, which really sort of hinders travel off-island. And I do think that the connect service has to be viewed in conjunction with the private sector taxi service in the north. That is reducing. And as I said earlier, when you've got a connect service that doesn't run in the evenings, doesn't run fully at weekends, you do need that private sector to be there. And if that is being affected potentially as a result of the connect service, I don't know, then that has to be looked at in the round. It can't just be purely in isolation with the public sector transport. Has the department or will the department hold any consultation processes? Or have you been able to write to them or give them some of your feedback? So I've been very keen for Ramstime Commissioners to write to the DIY bus van and talking about the transport links to Ramsey, especially with relation to the various villages. I think we get a little bit of correspondence. And certainly, bus van and did come in 18 months ago when we had a really good conversation. But I'm not sure what their approach is with regards to consultation with the local authorities. I appreciate they've got a really wide remit and they've got to take a lot of things into consideration that perhaps the opinions of Ramstime Commissioners aren't one of them or aren't high on the list. I wouldn't want to do them a disservice, but I've not been aware of anything particularly so far. Right. And I like what you mentioned earlier when you spoke about the port times because like the airport times and the boat times, because I don't think, well, for me, I wouldn't have thought about how it would also affect residents in the north, because you always think, oh, you have to travel all the way to the north, but you don't think about how those times also affects people. People will either have to leave extremely early just to make sure that they can, they can meet it. Are the times a bit, could they be better? I think the connect services are arguably, well, let me restart that. But I know Bus Fanon did toy with a connect ports service, and I think that got into some difficulties again with the taxi services complaints. But as it stands at the moment, I think it's almost impossible if not very difficult to actually make the boat on a morning through public transport, and certainly would be impossible to get to the airport. So you are massively hindered by that now. A static bus route, I think, would be very difficult to justify because you would be have to run that every single day. The costs would be huge and the take up might be very minor. But a more on-demand connect service that can be as it was originally tied in with patient transport, I think that definitely should be considered for the residents of north just to make travel a violent cost effective. Okay, can I just stop asking your name, please? Kerry Granville Smith. Based on what we've heard tonight, it seems that the bus services are not fit for purpose. How are the current bus services affecting your quality of life? Well, we run a cafe here and we get a lot of our staff from Ramsey and the surrounding areas, particularly Ramsey and the outer villages, find it difficult to get to us because they can't actually say what time they'll start work or what time a bus will turn up to pick them up when they finish. Now, the hospitality sector has obviously got a lot of challenges with recruiting people in general. But what you're saying there is that you're facing additional barriers? We've got to a point where we actually set our staff road to according to the bus timetable and then they still either don't turn up on time or they turn up early because they've got no other way of getting there. So do you feel like because you operate and live in Derby that you're almost not as important as other places on the island? Yes, they say they're trying to promote the whole island, especially for the many tourists that they're trying to get over. But there's certain areas that they're just blocking out from the rest of the island. And we've heard a little bit tonight about this app system. I actually haven't looked at the app. Can you describe to me what it would actually is? I don't actually use it myself. But we've got staff that say it's very frustrating because they are trying to book a bus that they say there's none available. All the buses are already fully booked and they can't get onto them. They also book a time and then they'll get messages from the app saying the buses are actually going to turn up later than they booked them for. We've heard tonight as well that some people who have children, they're finding it very restrictive and their kids can't go out because all kids are a bit impulsive. They wake up one morning and decide they're going out. But the way this is set up it doesn't sound like they can do that. No. You have to book sometimes a day in advance. You get these apps messages to say that the buses are fully booked. So any children that are trying to get together, like you say, it's always last minute. And you'll have groups of friends where kids from the outlying villages are getting cut out from the rest of the friends. Just one last question. Joebia's obviously part of the Aaron Michael constituency. Have you tried to reach out to Alfred Cannon or Tim Johnston? Not personally, no. Do you think you will? No, I personally won't because we live in Ramsey. We're just this meeting here because our business is in Derby. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
