Locals on the Wadden island of Ameland are worried a cut in ferry services could seriously affect businesses ahead of the holiday season as ferries run aground.

From Tuesday, ferry company Wagenborg will be operating fewer services between Holwerd in Friesland and the island because the shipping lane the ferries use is not safe at low tide.

Two of the company’s ferries ran aground at the weekend, with one taken out of service completely for repairs, reducing the service to a single ferry.

The lane is too shallow and too narrow because of a continuous accumulation of sand.  “That also means there is no room for ferries to pass each other causing further delays as one ferry waits for the other,” Wagenborg director Gerard van Langen told Omrop Fryslân.

Rijkswaterstaat infrastructure organisation, which is currently removing sand from the lane several times a day, hopes to find a solution to the problem in the coming week.

A suggestion to use a hovercraft, which is not dependent on depth, will also be considered. “The use of hovercrafts on the Wadden Sea is not permitted at the moment,” Van Langen said, “but we will look seriously at all options.”

Islanders and tourists are worried, Ameland mayor Leo Piete Stoel told broadcaster NOS, because a lack of passenger space on the ferries will mean cars will have to be left behind.  “It will be chaos,” he said. “If you have to go to a funeral or the hospital on the mainland, you can’t bring your car.”

Local businesses fear tourists will think twice about coming to the island which has attracts some 500,000 tourists a year. “People choose Ameland because it allows cars, although they only use them to drive to the accommodation. If they can’t do that they may go elsewhere,” Gunda Brunotte of business association OPA told the broadcaster.