Port Closure Spells Costly Changes For Many Travellers

FESTIVE SEASON CLOSURE AFTER STORM DAMAGE MEANS MONTH OF DISRUPTION

- LYNN RUSK

PASSENGERS who had planned to travel to Ireland via the storm-damaged Holyhead ferry port this Christmas are having to make 'costly' new arrangements due to its closure. Damage to the busy ferry port on Anglesey during Storm Darragh earlier this month is feared to be worse than originally thought, resulting in its closure until January 15 at the earliest.

All ferry services between Dublin and Holyhead are currently cancelled, affecting thousands of people travelling home for Christmas. Kim Ward, a paediatric nurse from Co Monaghan, Ireland, has had to make costly alternative arrangements to travel home with her dog Ziggy.

The 28-year-old, who lives in London, had initially planned to travel by train and ferry from Holyhead to Dublin. After learning that she could not travel from Liverpool as a foot passenger, Ms Ward and her partner Shannon Foley decided to drive to Liverpool to catch a ferry with Ziggy.

Ms Foley, also a nurse, has borrowed her cousin's car and will drop them in Dublin before crossing back to Liverpool and driving back to London to work. "I was supposed to go on December 21. It's normally a 12-hour journey, door-to-door, so I get the train from London and travel as a foot passenger," Ms Ward told the PA news agency.