Keep our Island special

All my friends are Islanders and I feel 100 per cent included.

Maybe it is because I believe in the saying "when in Rome..." Nevertheless, I can see many ways in which Island life can be improved, but, without destroying its unique character.

This is why I am very much against a fixed link to the Island.

Our Island status ensures the protection of our special environment and our quality of life.

The Island is a great place to live and work and in a way we are privileged to live here. No place in England can offer what we have to offer as an island.

The Island and its environment is our economic asset. Experts have been telling us this for years.

Four years ago when I discovered that the Island's unique character was suddenly at risk by the threat of a fixed link to the Island I founded AFLAG, Against Fixed Link Action Group.

A company, Linkland Limited supported by international accountants KPMG, was getting funding from the Isle of Wight Council to produce a feasibility study into the viability of a fixed link. Indeed, money willing, the study showed it was indeed viable.

The fact that KPMG were involved meant it was a deadly serious threat. They were behind the bridge link to the Isle of Skye. The study concluded that any form of fixed link would change the Island's character forever.

If people don't think that to be true then there isn't much point having one.

We have around 3,000 members and we successfully sent Linkland Ltd away with a flea in their ear.

Since then other people have jumped on the pro-link bandwagon.

This year a pro-link organisation called FLAG was founded. Of course there is big money to be made by the investors in the building of a fixed link so we are always aware that the threat is a constant one.

Unemployment is the persuasive emotional blackmail often used to justify a fixed link. Yet there are areas on the mainland such as Thanet and Hastings and Cornwall that have higher unemployment than the Island.

They aren't cut off from the mainland, yet we are doing better than they are.

According to the most recently published figures (September 2002) unemployment on the Island is decreasing faster than many other areas in the south east despite the increase in its population.

We don't need a fixed link. The idea is Victorian.

This is the 21st century an era of e-commerce, Internet, Intranet, IT, marketing and leisure. It is a computer-led world where more and more people will be working from home or from small business units.

We are uniquely poised to capitalise upon this. This will result in a demand for activities that involve socialising within the leisure industry - something the Island already has to offer.

The Island is brilliant at staging events, at tourism, at boat-building, and is potentially brilliant at the arts and at marine technology.

We should encourage design companies, small component manufacturers, specialist farming, and products where ferry charges, which are reduced for companies making regular trips, can be easily lost in the costs.

For instance it would be more cost effective to transport asparagus rather than potatoes to the mainland.

These are the kind of businesses that will not damage the Island's unique environment. They are exciting businesses, fast moving businesses, constantly changing businesses, and they need young people, imaginative, creative and lively thinking people to run them. This is the Island's future.

On the Island a young person can work hard and still have time to play hard rather than spending half their day sitting in a traffic jam on the M25.

If I have any complaint it is with the Isle of Wight Council and the Isle of Wight Partnership which does not put enough emphasis on helping young people setting up small businesses on the Island.

I firmly believe that it is better to encourage our own local population, who have an interest in, and love for the Island, to develop their business interests here rather than concentrate mainly on bringing in inward investment.

Companies that are so often here today are gone tomorrow businesses that are only on the trawl for grants and have no real interest in the Island and contributing to its unique culture and way of life.

Tourism is also an essential part of our economy. But I sometimes feel we have not moved in-step with the changing world of tourism.

When the whole of Britain was hit by cheap holidays abroad in assured sun the Island failed to adjust in the way the rest of the country did.

Britain now offers a very different kind of holiday selling its cultural cities, its heritage and its landscape.

The bucket and spade holiday is no longer the mainstay yet the Island is still heavily reliant upon family holidays in the main season and Saga holidays in the winter.

While these should still exist I think we would serve the Island better by encouraging up-market breaks offering quality accommodation, good restaurants and first class entertainment.

Not just for the British but for the foreign market too. Rather than a fixed link to the mainland I would like to see a feasibility study and investment into a ferry link direct to Europe.

I see the Island as a land of opportunity. This is a great Island and it can be greater. We don't need a fixed link to be successful. We need imagination, a positive attitude, a belief in our own unique abilities.

We need the right people to help us, modern people with new visions who understand the meaning of Local Agenda 21 and sustainable development.

People who can assess our existing qualities, and who know how to build upon our very specialist asset and not destroy it.

Any form of fixed link will bring irreversible change to our Island and its environment. It will cease to be special. Is that what we really want?