Ferry users left high and dry as pier falls apart

● Travel for thousands is disrupted as island service suspended

Calmac’s busy Oban to Mull ferry route ground to a halt when part of a council-owned pier fell apart.

The travel plans of hundreds of people were disrupted on Sunday when the ferry service was temporarily suspended

Mull and Iona Ferry Committee warned in January that a transport crisis was looming because the council had failed to address the state of the pier at Craignure.

Now Elizabeth Ferguson, chairwoman of the ferry committee, has written a damning letter to Argyll and Bute Council questioning the local authority’s maintenance spend on an asset which brings in pier berthing dues of almost £1.5 million a year.

Mrs Ferguson said: “Under its own weight and without any impact or encouragement this large timber, the job of which is to absorb

ELIZABETH FERGUSON the berthing force of ferries amounting to thousands of tonnes, simply fell away from the structure of the pier.

“Calmac had to immediately suspend all services and hundreds of travellers were severely impacted and rerouted via the Morven peninsular on the first busy weekend of the season.

“The certain impact on our economy and confidence in our islands as a destination is much harder to quantify.”

She added: “This incident raises doubts over the maintenance schedules and therefore the integrity of the pier as a whole.

“How can it be that a structure that is presumably subject to regular, detailed inspection and repair, which is openly acknowledged to be at the end of its design life, can suffer from an unforced failure such as this?”

Councillors and council officials met ferry committee members and Mull community councillors on 28 March and claimed the pier was “fit for purpose”.

The council issued a statement after carrying out a repair of the pier, which allowed ferry services to resume, saying: “We apologise for this brief disruption caused to ferry services by a displaced section of timber, which has now been successfully removed.

“After inspecting the site we can confirm this timber section was not an integral part of the pier’s structure and removing it will have no implications on the use of the pier for the scheduled service vessels.”

“This incident raises doubts over the maintenance schedules and therefore the integrity of the pier as a whole”