ANDREW POOLEY, general manager of Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company, writes:

Enough is enough. Greenway Ferry Pleasure Cruises have tried to depict us, the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company, as a huge corporate monster trying to run them out of business. This couldn't be further from the truth.

In actual fact, we are a relatively small local independent company only operating in South Devon and we employ approximately 120 staff of which 70 per cent are full-time employees. We pride ourselves on quality and customer service.

We stepped in to save the Western Lady ferry service because we felt we could change the way ferries across the bay are perceived for good. Remember what happened when the Government introduced concessionary bus fares? Public transport suddenly became very attractive. We want to achieve something similar but by using a boat not a bus.

However, we are not looking for Government support – we believe we can drive up demand and thus make the route viable at low prices.

Wouldn't it be great if tourists went home and told everyone what a great inexpensive holiday they have had here in the UK?

Unfortunately, Greenway has a very different business model. They chose to increase the number of services by departing from two departure points rather than their usual one departure point, trying to take advantage of the fact that they have the majority of sales outlets in both Brixham and Torquay. We cannot and do not wish to compete with their touts, so we chose an alternative approach.

All this nonsense about putting them out of business has just been proved to be ill–judged as they were quoted in the paper just last week as 'making a profit even at these massively reduced prices'... suggesting they were seriously over charging customers when they were charging £7 for Torquay-Brixham (now £2) and £15 for Torquay-Dartmouth (now £5).

We run boat services all year round to support the community even in the winter months when it is not profitable but, if the people of Dartmouth would like to see reduced prices, we can curtail our services.

We also play our part in supporting local charities either by staging events or by direct fundraising – causes such as Rowcroft, RNLI, Children's Hospice Southwest and Banardos to name just a few.

Just remember when you're thinking about which boat to travel on that 77 per cent of our profits are reinvested in our business. We spent £4m last year here in south Devon with our suppliers and sub-contractors and expect to spend the same this year. We have increased our permanent workforce by six per cent in the last year and we have a taken on apprentices, undergraduates and supported our staff with vocational training courses. We are a forward-thinking company trying to change local transport for the better so that it plays a major part in the tourist decision-making process and they choose this area for their holiday in the future.