So, "A SINGLE hovercraft service carrying passengers over the Forth, operating along the same lines as last year’s trial run, is unlikely to return before next year. Stagecoach had hoped to restore a one-craft service between Kirkcaldy and Portobello by the end of this year. But with work towards a permanent link between Kirkcaldy and Leith still going on, the company has confirmed that it will probably be next year before paying passengers can again make the 18-minute trip across the estuary. More than 32,000 passengers used the ForthFast hovercraft during the two-week trial last July, with organisers hailing the test as a “major operational success.”
Is it just Carnegie? But if the route can attract customers and make money, then Stagecoach should just get on with running it. There seems to be a concept creeping into public transport that everything should get a public subsidy even if the benefits of specific projects are unproven or difficult to quantify.
Why should the taxpayer pick up the cost for proiving subsidies to services when the private sector is itself not prepared to take the risk? Surely on a "nice to" project like this one we should let the market decide?
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