Graham Laidlaw of Transport Scotland Ferries Unit flew into Tiree on the morning of Monday 30th January with Cllr Mary-Jean Devon and Cllr Roddy McCuish of Argyll & Bute Council, to meet 20 or so delegates representing the crofting, fishing, construction, retail, tourism and haulage sectors on Tiree and Coll.

The purpose of Mr Laidlaw’s visit was to listen to the islanders’ views on the government decision to remove commercial vehicles from the existing RET scheme. Mr Laidlaw left the island with a petition of 233 signatures.
In a well prepared, composed meeting, the Tiree community made its view clear that this decision will be ‘catastrophic’ for the economies of Tiree and Coll and will leave these fragile islands at ‘breaking point’ with unmanageable increases in costs for businesses and individuals.

Fuel prices, already 25ppl higher than the mainland will go up by another 1.25ppl. Tommy Barbour fuels has been quoted an increase in his ferry ticket from £214.80 to £370.80 for a tanker of fuel to the island. The cost of exporting livestock, the backbone of Tiree’s economy, will increase by 103%. Donald Morrison of United Auctions advised that this is going to make it very difficult to keep customers coming to the island to buy livestock. Small fishing businesses and croft businesses stand to lose £5 – 7 thousand a year. Iain MacKinnon of I.A. MacKinnon Haulage advised that the price of an articulated lorry carrying general goods will double. These costs will be passed onto customers increasing prices of building and agricultural supplies, coal, food and so forth.

Contrary to the government’s justification for its decision that ‘savings from RET have not been passed on by hauliers’ and ‘haulage is largely insensitive to RET’, there is a united view across all sectors that this is not the case. There was unanimous agreement that without RET freight prices would have escalated alongside the increasing costs associated with the industry. Tiree builder Angus MacKinnon pointed out to Mr Laidlaw that freight to Tiree and Coll is ‘ring-fenced’ and not driven by the price of the ferry tickets. Hauliers working on this route are providing life-line services carrying essential goods such as fuel, food and animal feed and exports of shell-fish and livestock. Councillor Mary-Jean Devon pointed out that she was ‘amazed that the government even expected there to be an increase in freight volume due to RET’. It was pointed out that whilst tourist traffic has increased during the RET pilot, tourist spending had not. Tiree was ‘full’ in the high season before RET and is still full. RET has encouraged the same number of visitors to bring extra or larger vehicles and trailers.

The notion in the Draft Ferries Report that tourism has seen the greatest benefit from RET has not been properly researched and the statement is distorted. Proposals put to Mr Laidlaw at the conclusion of the meeting were:

• Ministers could simply instruct CalMac to increase fares across the board by a modest percentage to claw back the £2 million shortfall in the budget for RET.
• That the implementation of the proposal be postponed pending full consultation on how the decision will affect the island economies.

Alan Reid, MP for Argyll & Bute has decribed the Scottish Government’s plans as ‘Outrageous ’. He told An Tirisdeach
“they are robbing Peter to pay Paul. I have written to Scottish Transport Minister Keith Brown pointing out that his proposals will increase the cost of living substantially on the affected islands. I have urged him not to go ahead with these proposals”.

Professor Neil Kay, an Economist at Strathclyde University said that the Scottish Government’s policy on cheap ferry fares is economically illiterate and misguided. He said
“What is the point of offering a shop assistant cheap fares to the mainland if she cannot afford those fares because the business she worked for has just gone bust? You do not need an economist to answer that question – just common sense. No self-respecting economist would support RET as a device to get fares down.”

SPR has recently given a commitment to establish a Community Partnership Fund and to discuss with the community how to set it up. It has always been a priority for Tiree Community Development Trust to find out, on behalf of the community, more about what this could be if the proposed Array went ahead.

At the first public meeting held by SPR on Tiree it was announced that if the proposed wind farm development went ahead there would be financial benefit for the local community.

The first meeting between Tiree Trust and SPR to discuss the proposed Community Partnership Fund (CPF) took place on 24th January 2012. The purpose of the meeting was to plan the process for agreement of the Fund. Points discussed, which will also be on the agenda for future meetings, were:

• How the meetings should be recorded and reported and how the community should be consulted.
• The role of Argyll and Bute Council.
• What the make up of the negotiating body planning the process should be.
• How the final Fund amount per year should be calculated.
• What the make up of the future body which would administer and distribute the Fund should be.
• How funding for skills/education/training could be used in 2012-13.
• Negotiation stages and timetables for the process.

It was agreed that the above points would be on the agenda for the first stage of the discussions. The second stage would focus on what the Fund would be used for and what its amount would be. Each stage would end with a community consultation in the form of either an open afternoon or an evening public meeting.

There will be further meetings on 14th February and 21st February with the community consultation on Stage 1 soon after. Stage 2 will then commence immediately, with the object of final approval by the community, which would be Stage 3, around April 2012.

This is a joint update from the Trust and SPR. It was agreed at the meeting that these updates should be joint and not be included in the regular SPR updates. Full minutes of the CPF meetings will be available to the public at the end of each Stage of negotiations.

Tiree Community Development Trust is neither for nor against the proposed wind farm development and this process is a continuation of the fact finding mandate given by the community at public meetings in 2009/10. If anyone has any queries regarding the above please contact Donnie Campbell or the Tiree Trust office.

Community Partnership Fund

The first meeting with Tiree Community Development Trust to discuss this initiative took place on the 24th of January.
A joint report of that meeting appears elsewhere in this issue.

Marine Traffic Survey

As I said in the last update, there are due to be two surveys of marine traffic on the wind farm site this year. The first of these has started this week.Marico are the company carrying out the survey on SPR’s behalf, for the next two weeks or so.

The main survey point will be near the top of Ceann a’Mhara to gain the best radar sweep of the wind farm site. This is difficult work, not least due to the difficulty of getting the equipment on to the hill and coping with the wind exposure. Anyone interested in seeing how the work is done and how the data is gathered is welcome to go along to visit the survey, subject to any safety restrictions that may be in force at the time. The team are based at MacKay’s Cottage in Balephuil for the duration of the survey or can be contacted through myself.

Engineering Foundation Programme

ScottishPower’s 2012 Engineering Foundation Programme is now open for applications and this is a tremendous opportunity to learn valuable skills and start off a worthwhile career in the electricity industry.

The programme is a partnership between some Scottish colleges and ScottishPower and is designed to equip school leavers with the skills and qualifications to support progression onto an Engineering Apprenticeship.

Over an academic year the individuals achieve a qualification that focuses on Electrical Engineering at Level Two. ScottishPower currently recruits for the programmes in Scotland and also in the North West of England and North Wales.

If any young person from Tiree would be interested in applying for a place on this year’s programme then, in the first instance, please contact either myself or Ralph Thornton on 0141 614 0418. Staff at Tiree High School will also be able to give prospective candidates further information and support. Obviously, places are open to both female and male applicants.

In 2011, three Engineering Foundation Students secured an apprenticeship with ScottishPower’s Energy Networks business and a further four have been offered positions with the contractor IQA.

Questions or comments

If anyone has any questions or comments on any of the above, or indeed any aspect of the project, please contact me at – Donnie Campbell, ScottishPower Renewables Community Liaison Officer, Machair, Kilmoluaig in the first instance. My land line telephone number is 220352, mobile number 07881 983 753 and email donnie@argyllarray.com

Snow Goose at Cornaigmore

The extremely wet and windy weather continued unabated through December with a hurricane strength storm on 8th causing widespread damage across the island. A few birds got into trouble in the high winds and there were reports of a swan in a garden at Scarinish and a Cormorant on the road at Balephetrish. Unlike in the previous two freezing winters however, conditions remained generally mild with an absence of any prolonged frost.As a result, grassland waders and wildfowl found it easier to find food in the wet fields and marshes, with some 2,990 Lapwing and 3,150 Golden Plover counted around the island mid-month.

There were also hundreds of Wigeon and Teal scattered on the floods across the island, whilst many of the shorebirds such as Ringed Plover and Turnstone came in off the beaches to make the most of the rich feeding inland.

Offshore, gulls and auks found good feeding in more sheltered areas and there were fewer stormbound birds on the beaches than might have been expected given the stormy conditions. Hundreds of Fulmars returned to visit their nest ledges on rare calmer days, a sure sign that they were not feeding far from shore, whilst odd Gannets were present offshore throughout.

Winter scarcities were few and far between but included the long-staying blue-phase Snow Goose, which remained all month with Greylags in the Cornaigmore area. The Black Swan was last seen at Loch a’ Phuill on 2nd and presumably headed off to winter further south, whilst a Barn Owl was a rare find hunting along the road at Loch an Eilein (11th).

Scarcer waterbirds included 3 Pochard at Loch a’ Phuill (2nd) with a Scaup there (11th), a Little Grebe at Loch Riaghain (12th and 20th), 5 Common Scoter at Hough Bay (17th) with 3 more off Mannal (31st) and a Moorhen at Loch Bhasapol (20th).

Far rarer however was a Kemp’s Ridley Turtle that was found freshly dead on the shore at Baugh (9th) by Bill and Moira Welstead – a victim of the hurricane. An Iceland Gull near Loch an Eilein at the end of the month was the fore-runner of an unprecedented invasion of this all-white gull from Greenland in the New Year, together with smaller number of Glaucous Gulls.

A goose count (12th+15th) found lower totals than in November totaling 2,153 Greylags and 566 Greenland White-fronted Geese, although Barnacle Geese increased to 2,934 and there were also 3 Pink-footed Geese, a large-race Canada Goose with two hybrid young at Greenhill and a lone Pale-bellied Brent Goose at Balephetrish.

Prolonged windy weather can cause problems for smaller birds as they struggle to find shelter in which to feed and roost. Regular feeding with seeds and bread, plus provision of fresh water, provides a lifeline for regular garden birds such as House Sparrow, Blackbird, Robin and Song Thrush and may attract usually more wary birds such as Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Reed Bunting and even Water Rail.

The Big Garden Birdwatch Event on 28th – 29th January will provide the opportunity to chart the continuing fortunes of birds in gardens across Scotland.

Thank you to everyone who has reported their sightings of wildlife to me during the year and here’s hoping for a wildlife-rich 2012 on Tiree.

John Bowler

Welcome to the first Argyll Array Project Update of the year. I and the rest of the Project Team would like to wish everyone a happy, peaceful and healthy 2012.

Community Partnership Fund

The first meeting with Tiree Community Development Trust to discuss this initiative will take place during the week beginning 23rd of January.I will provide a report of that meeting in my next update.

Environmental Impact Assessment

The company are still working towards a deadline of Spring 2013 for submitting the application for consent. To support the application we need to write an Environmental Statement (part of the Environmental Impact Assessment – EIA). A variety of assessments into the human, biological and physical environment will be necessary in order to complete the Environmental Statement. WSP Group were appointed at the end of last year as our lead consultants on the EIA. They will be responsible for managing and co-ordinating these assessments on SPR’s behalf.

What have we done already?

- We have completed two years worth of bird and marine mammal monitoring on the wind farm site, and are now conducting an impact assessment on the basis of the data we gathered.

- During this week consultants Cathie Associates have been carrying out a visual geological survey of the island. The survey was carried out by geologists walking the terrain and observing the surface geology. There may be a follow-up survey later in the year. The results of the survey will be used to complement the sea bed geophysical surveys to be done on the wind farm site itself later this year.

What will we be doing next?

- There will be a survey of benthic (seabed) ecology on the wind farm site and possible export cable route. The data collected will be used to assess the potential effects of the wind farm on seabed habitats and species.

- The three wave buoys and current profilers which I mentioned in a couple of updates last year will be deployed on the wind farm site. The intention is to leave these instruments in place for one year. The data collected from these will be used to assess the potential effects of the wind farm on sediment movement and wave patterns. It will also inform many aspects of the technical design of the project.

- There will be two surveys of marine traffic on the wind farm site. The first of these will be in late winter, probably February, and the other later in the year. The surveys will be carried out from onshore on Tiree itself. Marico are the company carrying out the survey on SPR’s behalf. There will therefore be a couple of vehicles deploying a radio and antenna at various spots near the west coast of the island for the duration of the survey. The survey is expected to take about two weeks.

- Detailed work will commence on both the potential landscape/visual effects of the project and the potential socio-economic effects of the project. There will be more information on both these important aspects of the EIA as they get under way.

Technical Design Work

- Work continues on developing the engineering design of the project. In support of this, in Spring/Summer, a geophysical survey of the wind farm site and potential export cable route will be undertaken. This survey, conducted from a vessel, will measure the seabed depth, and yield information on the seabed sediment types and their thickness. The data from these surveys will inform decisions about where turbines and cables can be placed on the seabed. There will be full consultation with local fishermen regarding how this survey can be carried out with minimal disruption to fishing activity.

- This Spring/Summer we hope to apply for planning permission to erect an onshore meteorological mast on the west coast of Tiree, as described in a couple of updates last year. This mast will obviously provide us with accurate information on wind speed and direction. – Over the next few months work will continue to identify the preferred cable route to take the electricity from the wind farm back to the national transmission system. It was decided late last year not to take the export cables over Tiree and Coll. We still have to assess whether the cable route might pass over Mull or go completely undersea and, once it reaches Oban, the best route to then get it to the connection point at Dalmally. We also still have to decide whether the converter station which will be needed at or near the wind farm will be sited on Tiree or offshore.

Questions or Comments

If anyone has any questions or comments on any of the above, or indeed any aspect of the project, please contact me at

- Donnie Campbell, ScottishPower Renewables Community Liaison Officer, Machair, Kilmoluaig in the first instance. My land line telephone number is 220352, mobile number 07881 983 753 and email donnie@argyllarray.com

On 12th January Mr Reid’s calls were answered when it was announced that a Select Committee will be looking into:-

• ? The frequency and severity of weatherrelated power cuts in Scotland.
• ? The consequences of such power cuts to individuals, businesses and public sector services.
• ? The current condition and technological state of Scotland’s electricity transmission network.
• ? The advantages and disadvantages of using an alternative electricity transmission infrastructure, particularly regarding its vulnerability to weather-related damage.
• ? Was the response provided by the energy companies satisfactory? ?
• How the regulation of Transmission System Operators and Distribution Network Operators impacts upon investment in Scotland’s electricity transmission network.

The Committee welcomes written evidence from interested parties on any, or all, aspects of the inquiry by 2 February 2012.
Submissions should be in Word format and sent by e-mail to scotaffcom@parliament.uk. The body of the email must include a contact name, telephone number and postal address and should not exceed 2,000 words.

Mr Reid said,
“I welcome this inquiry. I encourage people who were affected by the power black outs to give their views to the Committee before the closing date of 2nd February.”

While RET is now extended to vans five metres or less in length, the fact is that most commercial carriers use vans six metres and over in length as five metre vehicles are few and far between. Crofters fear that the Scottish Government is sacrificing the former commercial RET for the sake of introducing RET to other islands without putting any more money into the scheme. One crofter said it does`not bear thinking about what the cost of freight to the island will be if RET is not reintroduced to commercial vehicles.

The Scottish Government report “Assessment of the impacts of the road equivalent tariff” pointed out that RET has made a positive impact on haulage businesses by lowering costs. The reports states that hauliers recorded savings amounting to an estimated 50% of ferry costs, and that whilst all of these savings might not have been passed on to the customers directly it allowed hauliers to offset other increased costs and therefore enabled prices to be pegged where they would otherwise have increased. Despite this, the Scottish Government recently announced the exclusion of commercial vehicles from the newly-extended RET, announcing instead that they would ‘replace RET for larger commercial vehicles on the Western Isles, Coll & Tiree, with an enhanced pre-RET discount scheme’. There is widespread concern that islanders will lose out heavily as a result of these proposed changes. David Muir of the Scottish Crofting Federation said:

“the SCF are calling on the Scottish government to provide urgent clarity on the situation as we are concerned that a reintroduced discount system could take away a great deal of the support that RET has brought to smaller hauliers. Any resulting increase in ferry fare cost will be passed on to customers.”

. Mr Muir concluded that “to support the fragile island economies what is needed is a fair syatem that retains the cost savings for hauliers and other commercials gained in the RET scheme”.
MP Angus MacNeil has called for clarity quickly on the new proposed ferry fares for hauliers if the government continues with its current proposal to get rid of RET for lorries. He said “the decision to remove RET from the hauliers is a mistake. The removal of RET will ultimately lead to an increase in prices for customers in our islands. I will be pressing for a meeting with the trasnport minister early in the year. Meanwhile a campaign group, hauliers for RET, has been assembled to both work on the RET case and to dispel the myth that arose in Edinburgh that island hauliers did not want RET. If this is not sorted freight costs and prices will go up which could ultimately impact on jobs” David Wood, the spokesman for “Hauliers for RET” commented that
“RET has benefited the islands and to remove it from the haulage industry will be detrimental to the whole community. Ultimately our customer will have to pay.”
The Scottish Ferry Services Draft Plan for Consultation states in the short term we are replacing RET for larger commercial vehicles on the Western Isles, Coll and Tiree, with an enhanced pre- RET discount scheme because:-

• The RET evaluation report shows that savings made by hauliers through RET have generally not been passed on to the consumers.
• In 93 per cent of cases, the reduction in ferry fares arising through the RET Pilot have been wholly or partially absorbed at some stage in the supply chain, without being fully passed on to customers. Only 7 per cent of firms in the sample of businesses indicated that the savings had been passed on in full throughout the supply chain from both their suppliers and on to their customers.
• The cost of rolling out RET to larger commercial vehicles is an estimated 40 per cent of the total cost of RET. ? Before the introduction of RET, hauliers received discounts to their fares up to a maximum of 15 per cent dependent on their volume of business with CalMac. Island hauliers told us when we rolled RET out that they were concerned mainland hauliers would be able to compete more effectively with them now that the same discounts applied to all hauliers. We will reinstate the pre-RET discounts that were enjoyed by hauliers and increase for the Western Isles, Coll and Tiree the maximum discount from 15 per cent to 25 per cent.
• For the Western Isles, Coll and Tiree the Government is considering how to extend the current discount eligibility criteria for hauliers.
• The Government is open to discussing with businesses which use larger commercial vehicles the most equitable formula which could be used to apply these discounts so that they benefit both larger and smaller companies.
• These improvements to the discount will be made for the Western Isles, Coll and Tiree only, where hauliers have received the RET discount since October 2008. While the discount has not been passed on to consumers we accept that in these difficult financial times some hauliers may find it difficult to now pay a fully increased fare. The increase to the maximum discount reduces the impact on these hauliers. We will revisit the discount again when we renew the Clyde and Hebrides contract in October 2013.
• We will look in the next CHFS tender to extend the current definition of a commercial vehicle from 5 metres to 6 metres. This will be consistent with the position in the Northern Isles
]]> http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/ret-and-hauliers/feed/ 0 http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/worlds-rarest-turtle-washed-ashore/ http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/worlds-rarest-turtle-washed-ashore/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:50:25 +0000 admin http://antirisdeach.com/?p=1810 This young turtle was found freshly dead on 9th December, the day after the big storm, and was originally identified as a Loggerhead. However, experts have now re-identified it as Britain’s 36th record of Kemp’s Ridley Turtle (Lepidochelys kempii). A few days later, a second individual was found on a beach in Ceredigion, West Wales.
Kemp’s Ridley Turtles are a warm water species, and the rarest of the marine turtles. They are considered critically endangered, nesting only on a few beaches in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr Peter Richardson of the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) says these recent turtle strandings suggest there may be more turtles out there that could wash up on UK beaches. “Our advice isthat under no circumstances should stranded turtlesbe thrown back in the sea. While they may appear to be dead, they may in fact be comatose due to the cold conditions, and can be nursed back to health if immediately rescued and given expert care. If they are dead, it is important that they are collected and stored for post-mortem examination.”
MCS has a produced a UK Turtle Code, which can be downloaded at www.mcsuk.org and gives information on how to identify turtle species found in the UK and who to call if you find one. In addition, all dead or alive stranded turtles should be reported to Marine Environmental Monitoring (MEM) on 01348 875000.
MEM organises the rescue and rehabilitation of live stranded turtles; collection and post-mortem of dead animals and maintains a national database of turtlereports.
]]> http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/worlds-rarest-turtle-washed-ashore/feed/ 0 http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/still-no%c2%b2-signal/ http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/still-no%c2%b2-signal/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:49:28 +0000 admin http://antirisdeach.com/?p=1813 O2 customers on Tiree are still without a mobile phone signal following the storm of 8th December!!!

Despite numerous complaints from customers, as well as the involvement of Councillor Mary-Jean Devon and a feature on the radio, O2 have failed to recognise or repair the problem with the transmitter.
It now seems that O2 have accepted their responsibility and are finally about to deal with it. Watch this space!!
O2 was formed in 1985 as Cellnet, a joint venture between BT Group and Securicor. In 1999 BT Group acquired Securicor’s share of Cellnet and the company was later re-branded as BT Cellnet and then as O2 in 2002.
In 2005 the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica acquired BT Group’s European mobile telecommunications businesses for £18 billion.

]]> http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/still-no%c2%b2-signal/feed/ 0 http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/the-big-december-storm/ http://antirisdeach.com/latest-stories/the-big-december-storm/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:45:39 +0000 admin http://antirisdeach.com/?p=1778 The huge storm that hit Scotland on Thursday 8th December left more than 150,000 homes without power during the day on Thursday and more than 70,000 were still off overnight. At least 10,000 homes in Scotland were still without power on the Saturday.
Here on Tiree it took until lunchtime on Sunday before power was restored to all homes! The hurricane-force storm has been described as a ‘weather bomb’, which in meteorological terms is defined as an ‘explosive deepening’.
According to catastrophe modelling specialists, Windstorm Friedhelm “began as a depression over the northern Atlantic, but as it approached the British Isles, it experienced a rapid drop of pressure that caused its wind speeds to soar”. This phenomenon occurs when cold air meets warm air and is characterised by a decrease in atmospheric pressure of at least 24 millibars in 24 hours. The lower the pressure, the stronger the winds become. Thursday’s storm was accompanied by a drop of 44mb!
By 9.50am ‘Windstorm Friedhelm’ officially became a hurricane as winds of 76mph were recorded at Tiree Airport – winds over 74mph are classified as hurricane strength. It was to get worse, with the maximum gust on Tiree being 91mph (146kmh). The mean wind speed for the day was 61mph. At Aonach Mor, just outside Fort William, there was a gust of 130mph (209kmh), whilst winds at Cairngorm Summit reached 165mph (264kmh).
Thanks to Sophie Isaacson for the photograph and to all the hydro boys for restoring our power in such horrendous conditions.
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