Ferry farce taking toll on tourism

Tourism in the Scottish islands has been reduced to a complete shambles with ferry services cancelled and the boats breaking down almost every week of the season.

This has led to lost bookings and stranded tourists being forced to sleep in their cars.

The islands are served by an ageing fleet of unreliable ferries with the wrong ships on the wrong routes while the replacements being built at Ferguson’s shipyard are twoand-a-half times over budget and more than five years late.

This utter farce comes courtesy of the SNP who are wholly responsible for the situation. Ministers should be recalled from their long summer break to negotiate compensation packages for the island businesses facing massive trading losses. Dennis Forbes Grattan,

Aberdeen