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.”

These photos were sent by Iain Mackinnon, London (son of Alastair Mackinnon, Hillcrest).

Does anyone recognise the van (registration 716 HGB) or know the name of the ferry’s Captain? I‘m told the ferry is the Mv Clansman but I’m not sure, and the photos were taken in 1962 – 1964.

If any of you can help please call in to the Business Centre Monday – Friday 9.00am – 1.00pm or telephone 01879 220520

I must say that on Saturday morning at 6.30am in Craignure, with a cup final ticket in my pocket, I was far from happy to be told that the first sailings from either side had been cancelled; I mean a cup-final is pretty time-sensitive – after all, 56,000 people are hardly going to wait for me to get to Hampden.I had to do some serious rearranging, but I finally made it with two minutes to spare.

I arrived back in Mull on the Sunday and started to get stories about the various inconveniences visited upon travellers throughout Saturday and Sunday with many more cancellations, and it became apparent there would also be disruption to other islands which would filter through to me later. I therefore asked Ian Fox for a full detailed timeline and the rationale behind what had been done to secure services to the islands. The very next day Ian obliged with an email that ran to 4 pages and gave a full picture of the scale of the disruption and how decisions were arrived at to provide services to Tiree, Coll, Castlebay, and Mull.

It is obvious that Mr Fox and his Masters and their crews worked extremely hard to try and maintain services while what had seemed a routine repair originally expected to take 6 hours ran into two days. Some points were made in the Email which are worth passing on.

Replacement vessels are not easy to locate for these routes. Early on Saturday enquiries with regional manager at Islay about the availability of MV Isle of Arran showed this vessel fully booked for every sailing on Saturday up to 8.20 pm. It then sailed to Oban and performed an improbable overnight return journey to Lochboisdale. Required rest periods meant a further reshuffle and further disruption.

I am sure your readers do not need me to tell them about the delays on the Coll and Tiree services. What is clear is that there is much to be praised about the way the local staff and management performed, but there are nevertheless questions about how this situation can arise.

Why is it so difficult to get replacements if one vessel breaks down and why is the result so seemingly chaotic? In truth there are a variety of contributing factors, never forgetting that vessels DO break down and staff DO need to rest. Not all vessels can get into all piers. Even if there was another vessel in the fleet it would be running a regular route rather than lying idle waiting for a breakdown, so unless you have an entire crew and vessel to spare at any time (dream on!) there will always be a reshuffle and the attendant cancellations and delays- it’s just inherent in the system.

At Ferry Consultations over the Spring I have heard it said that Calmac’s fleet needs a capital investment of some £30m to start to address the ageing state of the fleet. Lead times on new build ships are several years. Even if three new ships were ordered now, they wouldn’t come into service till 2013 or later. None of this makes particularly happy reading but I am glad the Government is trying to establish a long-term ferry strategy to identify and work to resolve these types of problems before the system breaks down entirely.

I can be reached on 01688 302 689 or by email on gordon.chalmers@argyll-ukbute.gov.