Ferry chaos

An open letter to CalMac MD Robbie Drummond: Please explain how you will fix the Arran ferry mess?

Sir, The unrelenting series of ferry breakdowns is now doing real harm to Arran. Surely enough is enough?

The staff and crew at the sharp end of CalMac are trying their very best. Seriously. Every encounter I have had with staff has been positive. They are struggling with breakdowns and older vessels. No relief in sight.

As the Arran Banner reported, the delays of MV Glen Sannox are laid bare. Even when commissioned and in service, the new ship is too big and will have that long-known problem of not getting into Ardrossan when there is a strong breeze, and diverting to Gourock.

On August 25, after an earlier torrid week of ferry chaos and stranded families, the Arran Banner were kind enough to publish a letter asking CalMac MD Robbie Drummond for a reply and answers to some questions that islanders have. To date there has been no response.

Yesterday, Sunday September 9, I was worried sick as my friends and their two young children tried to get back to the mainland and found the last ferry out of Brodick had been cancelled. This young couple were sent to Lochranza where the crew were good enough to work late and help get stranded visitors off of the island. But instead of a 10-minute trip from Ardrossan Winton Pier, to their Kilwinning home, my friends had to borrow a car and drive, with two young children from Claonaig for three hours and didn’t get home until after midnight. The kids were upset and exhausted.

This experience is being repeated a 100 times with dozens of friends, families, visitors and islanders being left deserted or utterly stressed out each time CalMac HQ and senior management fail to run the lifeline ferry service as per their contractual obligation. The company appears close to implosion.

Some people on the Arran Community Forum Facebook pages actually think this is funny but the majority don’t. This relentless CalMac nightmare is now having serious implications on Arran. Our own small efforts are focused on renovating a closed down hotel. That will create six new jobs. We have a group of friends who have enjoyed re-opening closed businesses for 20 years.

We already have the next project on Arran lined up. Okay, it may only be eight more new jobs, but after a while these things can make a positive difference.

Unfortunately, the CalMac senior management are not able to solve their appalling ship failures.

Each time, the CalMac MD goes home to a warm bed whilst he leaves his staff to pick up the pieces and deal with visitors being stranded on Arran, or left deserted at Ardrossan.

Worse, the evident inability of CalMac’s managing director to get a grip of his remit will cost jobs on Arran. Our own moderate effort will be impacted if CalMac fail to sort out this crisis.

Our next Arran project is now on hold until we see if CalMac can repair their lifeline ferry service.

Consequently, might I ask the CalMac MD either comes to a public meeting in Brodick, or at the very least, replies to concerns about his ferry failures and his plans to fix them via the Arran Banner? After reading some of the anger on internet sites last night, Mr Drummond could be forgiven for not wishing to attend a very robust town hall-style meeting on the island. But if he continues to ignore people whose livelihoods depend on a reliable lifeline ferry service, two things will happen.

One, there will be a formal request to invoke the termination/penalty protocols of the October 1, 2016 CalMac lifeline ferry contract (eight-year duration) and secondly, the case we won in the CalMac dispute between 2005 and 2006 will be re-opened. Whilst the EU ruling is now moot because of Brexit, the transitional enabling UK legislation is still competent to progress.

I am trying to retire back home at Corrie and Sannox, but this ferry mess is the worst I have known in all of my life.

CalMac is paid £100,000,000 in subsidies every year and had a £3,500,000 bung last week to fix the ageing vessels. If Robbie Drummond cannot remedy this mess and refuses to explain his solution to islanders, then time to employ a new managing director.

Yours, Russ McLean, Sannox.