Transport minister’s ferry fix is of ‘little or no merit’
ISLANDS hauliers and seafood businesses have sent a searing letter to Scottish Transport Minister Graeme Dey following a meeting to try to address what the firms say is a growing crisis affecting freight ferry transport.
Businesses were told after the September meeting with the minister that tendering for a new Northern Isles freight ferry would not begin until the end of next year at the earliest, meaning any new ferry would not be seen until 2026, and even then all of this is subject to delays.
The background is one of freight traffic now up a fifth and shrinking resources as the Scottish ferry fleet is beset by breakdowns and the ferry-building programme woefully late after a series of significant delays.
Mr Dey prompted a less than enthusiastic response as he fanfared his “solution to the current shortfall in freight capacity”.
Which is: “Transport Scotland have introduced a pilot scheme that offers a revised fare structure to hauliers of time-sensitive freight who make use of weekend sailings.”
The Stewart Building Transport Group, which represents the islands’ hauliers and seafood industry, said the solution put forward by Mr Dey for firms simply to work weekends was seen as having “little or no merit” with “customers being resistant to taking deliveries over weekends and producers and hauliers being forced to incur the costs of adjusting their entire operations to a seven-day week - this at a time when labour shortages and other pressures are well documented”.
The exchange follows the
Scottish Government’s announcement that it is investing £9 million in a ferry from Norway for the west coast.
The group said that, given that the minister said a broker is looking for a vessel to charter, it “questions this sole option – particularly so, now that we are aware that you were already in the process of purchasing a second-hand ship to service the west coast routes when you attended our meeting”.
The group also wrote to Mr Dey: “We would strongly urge that all options, including purchase, must be considered for the Northern Isles as well as the west coast routes, given the dire circumstances we face.”
A Transport Scotland spokesman said that “opportunities for suitable second-hand tonnage that could be added to the west coast or
Northern Isles fleets” continue to be sought.
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