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Displaying items by tag: 10 year Plan

Residents of Rathlin Island off Co. Antrim are leading the way in the battle against climate change with communities on the island revealing ambitions to become carbon neutral.

In 2015 many countries pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by signing the Paris Agreement and the inhabitants of Rathlin have a ten year plan in place and are focusing on renewable enery, self-sufficiency, electric transport and a hyrdrogen ferry.  

Rathlin Island is Northern Ireland’s most important seabird colony and its surrounding seas are Marine Protected Areas, featuring reefs, sea caves and maritime cliffs.

Living in an area such as Rathlin necessitates a harmonious relationship with the surrounding environment, and islanders feel passionately about leading the way when it comes to becoming eco-friendly and fighting climate change.

For more from ITV News including footage from islanders and on plans to fuel future ferries that could also be battery powered. 

Currently the island is served by two ferries and as Afloat reported in 2016 the Spirit of Rathlin (car ferry) was custom built by Arklow Marine Services. 

Published in Island News

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).