Residents on Port Macquarie's North Shore are calling for more open communication channels with council after the Settlement Point Ferry broke down for four hours last week.
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The Settlement Point Ferry is currently undergoing its regular two-year service and the replacement ferry was out of action for around four hours on Monday, October 23.
Northside Progress Association Kerry Fox said having the remaining ferry go out of action while the other is being serviced "highlighted a few issues that need to be ironed out".
"We just needed updates to know what was happening," she said.
"If there were more regular updates and they (council) knew it was going to be out for longer, then residents could have made other arrangements."
The ferry was out of action from just after 5pm on October 23 due to a mechanical fault and resumed at 9pm.
Port Macquarie-Hastings Council (PMHC) said in a social media post that crews were attending to the fault and a further update would be provided via SMS and Facebook to affected residents when the normal service had resumed.
The ferry outage resulted in a long line of cars and frustrated residents, which council did acknowledge.
"While we accept tonight's interrupted service inconvenienced a lot of people, we must prioritise the safety of passengers above all else while we investigate any mechanical issue - no matter how big or small - with our ferry service," council said in a social media post.
Ms Fox met with Port Macquarie-Hastings Council Director Community Infrastructure, Robert Fish, on Friday, October 27, to discuss residents' concerns.
"When I met with Robert Fish on Friday, I gave a lot of feedback about how nobody knew what was going on because council's communication was too irregular," she said.
"The whole thing was about the lack of knowing what was going on."
Ms Fox said she discussed more regular communication and updates from council to the community if something like this happens again in the future.
"Council was doing what they thought best at the time and I think the outage ended up being longer than expected," she said.
Ms Fox also said she noticed a lot of misinformation on social media during the outage.
"I think if council were to provide more updates when something like this happens, then there wouldn't be misinformation being spread among residents.
"Council did have a Marine Rescue boat on standby for any medical emergencies which is contrary to what some might think."
Ms Fox said the discussion with council was productive and "a lot has learnt from both sides".
"I think they have taken onboard the irregularity of communication and if we can work towards that with council then it will help if this happens again."
PMHC has been contacted for further comment.
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