内容摘要：Teams have already been restoring the basement which had suffered years of neglect and flood damage.

Teams have already been restoring the basement which had suffered years of neglect and flood damage.

"Ninety-nine per cent of the passengers know me and they get on fantastic with me. I'm always trying to help them out and we have a laugh."They know they are safe with me as I've got a background in the fishing industry".

said a ferry, had carried passengers across the river since 1285, when the town was one of the most significant ports in England.The closure means a diversion for passengers of at least three miles (5km) in each direction.Alexandra Kemp, an Independent borough and county councillor, criticised the delay in making the repairs.

"The ferry is the park-and-ride and walk-and-ride for the villages on the west of the Ouse, like West Lynn, Clenchwarton, Terrington and further afield," she said."Funds need to be allocated immediately for the permanent improvement of the crumbling ferry landing stage in West Lynn, as well as to the temporary repairs".

A spokesperson for West Norfolk Borough Council acknowledged the loss of service would be frustrating to both the operator and passengers.

But they said it would be "inappropriate" to ask the operator to make any changes without being certain that the infrastructure could be brought up to standard to allow operations to resume while "more permanent options" were considered and costed.Both men deny any involvement at all with the felling and claim they were each at their respective homes all night.

and took his car to get to the scene, whileand his co-accused was lying.

In his closing speech, prosecutor Richard Wright KC said the "two-man team" and "odd couple" had seen it as "just a tree" and "they must have thought that this was a bit of a laugh".But, he said, they had not appreciated the public's outrage at the destruction of "something so beautiful for no good reason".