ONE is opinion, two is interesting, three is the beginning of a trend, but when every person you speak to tells you the same thing, it matters – and every person on Arran I spoke to about the ferries told me the same thing. It’s got worse. It needs fixed. We need help.

Understandably, some of the people I talked to were worried the constant chat about how bad things are could be damaging for the island’s image. Others didn’t want to be named or didn’t want me to write about certain parts of their story and I get it: relationships on an island or in a small community can be extremely inter-connected, which makes criticism difficult. If your boat’s small, rock it at your peril.

But what impressed me most in speaking to islanders over the last few days, off and on the record, was the consistency of their stories. Many of them spoke about house prices for example, and the fact that if you’re young and on average pay, it can be difficult to live on Arran, which is why some of the staff at the Co-op are shipped across from the mainland every day. Sometime soon I’d like to write about that because it’s an issue that affects lots of rural communities.

However, the focus this time was the ferries because the service has unquestionably got worse in the last five to ten years and there’s a lack of confidence in the solution the Scottish Government is promoting. You’ll have seen the pictures of it. A big, bulky thing known for a long time by a number that’s become rather infamous with islanders and anyone concerned about good value for public money: number 801.

The problem with 801 as far as the islanders are concerned is that it was, from the start, the wrong ferry for Arran. What the island really needs is two, or ideally three, small ferries or catamarans that can zip across to Ardrossan back-to-back. Indeed, Transport Scotland seems to be on the brink of admitting this by assigning both 801 and its equally sad sister 802 to Arran and I guess that’s what you’d call making the most of a shambles.

But the fact Arran has ended up with 801, or the Glen Sannox, indicates another, deeper problem with how the Scottish Government (and other governments to be fair) handle big public projects like this one. For example, one of the islanders told me about an early meeting they had with CalMac in which the company representative laid out the plans for the new ferry. Almost to a man and woman, the islanders looked at it and said: ‘what the hell is this? this isn’t what we need.’

The point the islanders were making – and they’re still making it now – is that the process of commissioning the new ferries was top-down and did not involve a proper, meaningful consultation with the locals. I spoke to the Government about this and they told me all the options would be discussed with the island communities at the appropriate time but what the islanders feel is that the Government did not properly assess what the actual issues were and use that as a basis for working out a solution.

You can see this problem in other areas of Scottish public life as well: the health service for instance. The Scottish Government is in the process of creating a National Care Service mainly to slay the mythical beast they call the Postcode Lottery, but what they’ve never done is carry out a proper audit to determine the precise scale of the problem with social care and how people on the ground think it should be fixed. It’s a massive logical flaw of public policy because it’s only by understanding a problem that you come up with a solution that has a chance of working.

I guess the reason governments don’t do it this way is that a genuine understanding of a problem will also reveal how much it’s actually going to cost to fix it. But if saving money was the motivation with the ferries, the scandalous irony is that the lack of consultation and understanding of the issues has ended up costing the taxpayers more, not less. Original price: £97m. Current cost (and counting): around £250m. Final cost: who knows.

The lack of accountability on the ferries, even at this late stage, is also troubling. You may have heard John Swinney, the deputy First Minister, admit there has been a “collective failure” over the service. You may also have heard Nicola Sturgeon acknowledging at the public audit committee recently that the decisions around the procurement of the two new vessels, the progress (or lack of progress) in building them, and the Scottish Government’s support of Ferguson were “areas of concern”. But what does any of this actually mean?

One way to tackle the problem for the longer term – and it’s never too late for this – is to consult the islanders now. There has undoubtedly been poor leadership from the government – the delays, the expense, the infrastructure that’s not fit for purpose, the nationalisation of Ferguson’s and the relationships with government that at the very least are worthy of investigation. But poor leadership becomes disastrous leadership when you don’t learn from mistakes and the Government’s big mistake was failing to listen to the islanders. They can still put it right.

So the answer is simple in a way: Transport Scotland needs to get its butt over to Arran and institute a profound and proper consultation on what’s needed for the longer term. The islanders I spoke to came up with lots of ideas, including redesign of the pier at Brodick, further services from Lochranza in the winter, a new ticket system like the one on the Danish island of Samso that prioritises residents, and many others. But no one had any real faith that they would be listened to. That’s the point.

We should also think about the core mistake which the Government made here: commissioning ferries that were unsuitable for Arran. Vessels like 801 mean less frequency, less resilience, and less flexibility, as well as higher operating costs, whereas smaller vessels – ideally electric catamarans – are more nimble, cheaper, and offer a better way to tackle the changes in weather, climate and coastline that we know are coming.

Am I confident any of this will happen? Under the current government, no. When I approached them, they told me about everything they’d done “since this government was elected in May 2021”. Nice try. There was no re-set in 2021. It’s you who’s responsible for where we are now. And you can still put it right by listening to the people of Arran. Because they’re all saying the same thing, loud and clear: for God’s sake, come and talk to us.

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