WITH every business meeting, medical appointment or delivery missed by islanders on the west coast wishing to travel to the Scottish mainland, the temptation is to focus on Caledonian MacBrayne, the state-owned ferry operator which runs the bulk of Scotland’s ferries.
In reality, CalMac can only sail vessels which are provided to it by Caledonian Maritime Assets (CMAL), the harbour and ferry infrastructure body which has the Scottish Government as its ultimate paymaster.
And, with islanders, tourists and business-owners increasingly frustrated over cancellations and timetable disruptions, it is becoming clear that it is ferry procurement policy presided over by Scottish ministers which should be brought under the microscope.
Experts say the solution to Scotland’s ferry woes lies in a radical rethink in the way vessels are acquired.
In simple terms, they argue that CMAL buys ships which are too big, too expensive, too complex and, in some cases, too difficult to manoeuvre.
Take the recent controversy over the two ferries CMAL ordered from Ferguson Marine.
Putting the contractual dispute between the parties to one side, it is argued by some that the vessels were ordered without giving sufficient pause to how they would fit into the
network.
One of the vessels, the Glen Sannox, was ordered for the Ardrossan to Brodick route. But its specification has necessitated tens of millions of pounds of investment to upgrade the harbour infrastructure at both ports, simply because of the ship’s size.
Some fear that the combined cost of the Ferguson ferries and harbour upgrades will be much more than £100 million.
Is this really a wise use of public money?
And there are other examples. The Loch Seaforth which sails between Stornoway and Ullapool cost £42m and almost the same again in harbour upgrades.
But it is not only the apparent waste of public money which irks communities on islands such as Arran and Islay.
The policy of operating certain routes with just one vessel causes problems when, as often happens given the age of the fleet, ferries break down.
When that happens, ferries are taken from other routes, leading to wider disruption across the network.
There is much to be said for the calls by respected experts such as Alf Baird and Roy Pedersen to improve capacity and reliability by introducing a bigger fleet of smaller vessels, which run more often, cost less, and do not require harbours to be massively upgraded.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here