MANAGING director of coach company Isle of Wight Tours, Shirley Winn, has been engaging in Zoom meetings with Cabinet politicians to talk about the 'forgotten industry'.

So far, along with the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) she has spoken online with Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, and Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps.

She is speaking with Mr Raab again next week.

This followed an exclusive article in the County Press, which highlighted the plight of coach tour operators, who were exempt from financial support due to it not being classed as a leisure business.

The Coach Tourism Association (CTA) said the press coverage that followed, led to Shirley becoming prolific across broadcasts all over the country.

"When the BBC contacted the CTA for someone in the business to talk about the situation facing coach holidays, she seemed like a natural, which is exactly what she turned out to be."

A spokesperson said: "Sometimes it takes catastrophe to bring out unexpected talents in people.

"One such is Isle of Wight Tours' managing director Shirley Winn, who has hit the airwaves on behalf of the coach tour industry in broadcasts all over the country on BBC local radio.

"Shirley has been very active in working with the press on the Isle of Wight as well as Visit Isle of Wight and the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce, plus working with local MP Bob Seely and being a regular on many Zoom meetings.

"When the BBC contacted the CTA for someone in the business to talk about the situation facing coach holidays, she seemed like a natural, which is exactly what she turned out to be."

She said it was all about stating the case for the coach tour industry, which remains the ‘forgotten industry’ and leaves her still 'fighting away'.

She said the talks have left her hopeful that, after what may be some hard work ahead, there may be a boom in store for those who do survive. She believes there are 'bits and pieces' of help on the way, to aid the industry.Isle of Wight County Press:

On re-starting their trips, Shirley said: "We want to make sure the time is right for our customers. What we don’t want to do is start operating again too soon and then find that legislation changes or we get a localised outbreak and therefore our customer confidence rockets down again, having built it up.

"We have listened to each group organiser about their concerns and we want to build up customer confidence so they’re happy to travel again.

"We’ve got a few groups saying they are going on trips from middle to late September — that’s when we’re looking at starting our tours and holidays.”