Islands need serious road improvements

Sir, With CalMac boasting about the number of passengers on its ferries, it very much seems to me that the local authorities on the West Coast of Scotland need to stand up and take note.

The situation with the standard of the roads in the Highlands and Islands is not suitable for the onslaught of numbers being talked about, and all authorities need to demand a seven-year programme for improvements.

Here in Uist, a project that began in 1982 is still only halfway completed, and the Isle of Mull and other islands also need major upgrading. In fact, instead of putting an extra ferry on the Mull crossing, leave the MV Coruisk where it was supposed to be.

And CalMac has lied time and time about dedicated services and promises – for instance, the MV Finlaggan was promised to the good folk of Islay, but after a few months it was transferred elsewhere.

If you are going to make statements, carry out what you said would do

nd, to all and sundry, what happened to the initial set up of David McBrayne, when it was categorically, and in good faith, stated that it would be for the welfare and social good, and essentially a lifeline service for the people of the Hebrides?

What happened? I can list a whole load of services that today are nowhere representative of what they were set up to do. Also, if CalMac wants to ensure a regular, dependable service to South Uist, it needs to build a ship on the lines of the Pioneer which did the crossing in the 1970s and would do it in a force nine. It would have had to be storm force 10 before it would not venture out. I know plenty of people now retired who would vouch for such a boat.

Will our local leaders please find the backbone and stop this motoring madness gallivanting on our poor roads so our locals and delivery drivers can get their day’s work done? Or will they at least scream at the Scottish Government for better roads?

Obviously somewhere our leaders have taken their eyes off the ball, and the roads as well. Angus Campbell, Garrynamonie, South Uist.