CalMac listens but it can’t find any answers

The widespread disruption of the Arran ferries since the start of the year has already cost the island economy ‘millions of pounds’, it was said this week.

There are also fears that many visitors who were caught up in the fiasco will never return to Arran in winter again, damaging attempts to make the island a year -round destination.

Now there are demands for Caledonian MacBrayne bosses to adopt a more ‘can do’ attitude to keep Arran’s lifeline ferry services running.

Top CalMac chiefs were on Arran this week to answer questions from the Isle of Arran Ferry Committee as to why things went so badly wrong in the days immediately following the New Year holidays when cancelled sailings left hundreds of visitors and islanders stranded on Arran.

Cancellation rate

And figures unveiled at the meeting by chairman Iain Thomson showed that of the 292 timetabled sailings since the start of the year 120 had not sailed – a 41 per cent cancellation rate which he said the island was ‘unable to sustain’.

Smaller vessels

This is in part due to the route being serviced by two smaller vessels, the MV Isle of Arran and MV Hebridean Isles, which are unable to operate in windy conditions, while the MV Caledonian Isles is in for its annual refit.

At the specially-convened meeting of the ferry committee on Tuesday, to which the Banner, along with leading hoteliers and others, was invited, CalMac managing director Robbie Drummond, operations director Robert Morrison and new communications director Stuart Wilson answered prearranged questions on the disruption and what actions could be taken to prevent it happening again.

However, there were few answers forthcoming with CalMac admitting:

❚There is no guarantee the same thing won’t happen next

year as there i s little ‘wriggle room’ for the MV Caledonian Isles refit and no chance of a bigger replacement boat.

❚It doesn’t know when, or even if, Gourock will be able to be used as the port of refuge, with Campbeltown now even being considered.

❚The ageing fleet is under increasing strain as it will be at least two years before the MV Glen Sannox and her sister ship are ready.

❚It will be another 18 months before there is a new ticketing system, replacing the outdated manual one.

❚Demands for a relief crew to help ferries make additional sailings have been repeatedly rejected by Transport Scotland.

❚Mr Drummond also told the meeting there was no long-term strategic plan for ports and vessels for the next 30 years, something which he had been strongly arguing for and, in what he described as ‘short-termism’, he said CalMac had only two years of its six-year contract to run.

But Mr Thomson accused the company of a reluctance to step outside its contract for the good of the travelling public.

‘There is a ‘‘no can do’’ attitude and we need a ‘‘can do’’ attitude,’ he said.

And independent traveller representative Neil Arthur said the investment in the fleet in the last 13 years had been half of that for the previous 13 years.

Arran Dairies managing director Alastair Dobson, who represents business interests on the committee, said it was a hard fact that there was going to be no change in the present ferry situation for at least two years.

He said: ‘There was a time when there was criticism that the boat went to Gourock too much.

‘What would we give for a three-ferry-a-day service just now.

‘We have to accept there is no Gourock; no new boat coming; visitors getting stranded; the community increasingly frustrated and businesses which are going to stop working again.

‘We need to get communication right for tourists, the community and business so that everyone knows just what the ferry is going to do on a day-to-day basis.’

Arran Economic Group chairman Tom Tracey added: ‘We need to do better with what we have got.’