Well done, Bill

Sir,

I wish to extend my sincere thanks to the Arran Ferry Committee secretary Bill Calderwood who put in a great, full shift on Sunday on behalf of the AFC and the disadvantaged Arran travellers and it should be publicly recognised.

Whilst far from ideal, the extension to sailings from Claonaig until 9.20pm hopefully saw most cars home. However, provision for all travellers from Ardrossan is perceived to have been poor, but particularly for pedestrian passengers.

CalMac’s contingency plans for such an easily foreseeable, Covid-related event were atrocious and have to be addressed to avoid repetition – the simple, usual Gourock HQ-issued blanket apologies will not do. Enough is enough!

Are we really expected to believe that a similar Covid occurrence in a local bus or local rail station office would have shut the system down for the day? I think we know the answer to that is ‘no’.

The fact that CalMac is a state-owned, heavily subsidised and heavily unionised service has to be a contributory factor. Is ‘lifeline service’ just a convenient phrase when it suits or only at contract renewal?

There are a lot of angry people out there who are 130 miles out of fuel and time and considerably inconvenienced. Why is the Arran ‘port of refuge, Gourock’ dependent on Ardrossan staff and therefore not Covid-proofed? Contingency planning and risk assessment – totally missing in a company that has those phrases as their mantras – CalMac needs to explain the absence of attention to detail?

Hopefully there will be some answers from them urgently to the AFC.

Yours,

Neil Arthur,

Kilpatrick.