06/08/2022
Visitors past and present, do please consider signing and sharing this petition. https://www.facebook.com/538211073/posts/10158862750026074/?d=n
Lifeline should mean lifeline not a part-time and increasingly unreliable service.
Over the years I’ve spoken proudly and publicly of our ferry service, and so far as the office staff and crew go, I stand by that. However, the actions (or rather inactions) of senior staff at CalMac, CMAL and the Scottish Gvt are an absolute outrage that needs to be brought to public attention.
This issue isn’t really about one winter of disruption, it is about years and years of islanders being ignored by the decision makers. Had we still got two ferries serving Stornoway (one freight, one passenger, as used to be the case) we would have more resilience to breakdowns. Had CMAL listened to local opinion and procured two smaller ferries for the triangle instead of the rusting hulk that will probably never be finished, we would not be in the current mess. A ferry breakdown under those proposals would mean a slower, perhaps slightly reduced service for a day or two, but service there would be- and the whole fleet would have some contingency for maintenance and repairs in the winter months.
What we have is ineptitude and penny-pinching which has no place on a “lifeline service” and got us into a huge mess that will probably require a charter or a purchase of whatever vessel can be obtained to get us out of it, almost certainly a far less suitable vessel than we could have had if the process had been done right in the first place. False economy? Absolutely. To be met with cries of “the cost, the cost!” by CMAL and Sc Gvt when solutions are put before them after the almighty mess and expense the failed procurement fiasco has landed us in is laughable.
