For pity's sake: can we please get a bloody ferry? |
They say necessity is the mother of invention. On South Uist, necessity is the mother of frustration, and CalMac is the father of despair, writes columnist Calum Steele: the ferries break, the timetables lie, and every resident knows the only thing they can rely on in unreliability.
One of the challenges of writing this column is trying to keep the subject of my musings fresh. I pontificate on policing and justice issues more than is perhaps healthy. Endless frustrations with the world of Scottish and UK politics also provide a rich seam to exploit, and the mad man in the White House has also allowed me to vent on global instability with the confidence and certainty that only comes with being a white middle-aged bloke. Predictably perhaps, being a loud and proud Hebridean, my now near-incandescent rage with the ferry situation on the west coast means Caledonian MacBrayne has been in the gun sights too.
Yet for all that I have never written about the same subject in consecutive weeks, and when I told a friend I intended to write about CalMac for the second week in succession, her reply that doing so would be more regular than the crossings provided all the confirmation I needed that my choice was sound. With the entire West Coast network on the verge of collapse over recent days, there really has only been one domestic news story that mattered – ferries.
It is entirely coincidental that I am composing this column from South Uist, where a shambolic ferry service has been part and parcel of life since 2013. Navigating my way here was what the kids would term “a mission”, and my wry observation last week that the only ferry you could rely on was the one that helped you leave has been thoroughly discredited, as yet more ferry chaos has unfolded since my arrival.
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Any South Uist resident will tell you that there is no comfort to be found in the fact that almost every community served by ferries has felt the pain and anxiety of a critical shortage of vessels – that has been their experience for the past 13 years – but the intense spotlight on the (lack of) ferry service is something that has been loudly celebrated.
That, of course, doesn’t help local businesses and families whose plans have been totally upended. Two extended families planning an Easter get-together to celebrate an engagement have reluctantly conceded defeat to CalMac; a hotelier friend has yet again been hit by a string of cancelled bookings and told me “I would be as well closing”, such has been the impact on his business; and perhaps most alarmingly of all in this tiny, fragile community, news of three young, skilled families deciding to call it a day and move to the mainland as the constant uncertainty has finally worn them down.
CalMac’s communications this past week were uncharacteristically blunt. There was a “critical shortage” of ships creating an “unprecedented level of challenges” – a reality it has had little compunction in imposing on South Uist for 13 years now – almost all, of course, as a consequence of shameful neglect in the fleet over decades – but that part was glossed over with some corporate language highlighting the challenges of an ageing fleet.
We knew things were bad when Fiona Hyslop eventually bowed to pressure and found her tongue to assure us that “the Scottish Government was working closely with CalMac to resolve the issues.” Given the decrepit state of the fleet and ever-increasing breakdowns, we are left to wonder precisely how the resolution will be delivered – but South Uisters are bracing themselves for sustained disruption after this latest crisis abates, and new ministers can get back to ignoring their plight.
South Uist’s ferry, the Lord of the Isles (LOTI), is perhaps the most versatile of the larger ships in the fleet. There isn’t a harbour it can’t navigate, and the willingness with which it is plundered of the route to replace breakdowns elsewhere on the network shows just how much CalMac relies on its capabilities. You’d be forgiven for thinking such a design would have been copied extensively, but that would have made too much sense, as constant variations to ship design carry a vanity benefit that a steady stream of parts that could be swapped in and out simply don’t attract.
But even the LOTI has succumbed this time and is currently in dock in Greenock for repairs to “an engine alignment issue”. CalMac would neither confirm nor deny reports of a problem with the engine mountings, but in any event its return to service isn’t looking likely any time soon – heaping even greater misery on the beleaguered South Uist.
CMAL, Transport Scotland, and the Scottish Government would have us believe there isn’t a single ferry anywhere in the world that they could rent or buy to help the dire situation affecting the islands. Worse than that, they would have us believe that after a global search a few years ago, they happened to find a suitable vessel in the guise of the MV Alfred right here in Scotland. Talk about luck – the only spare ferry anywhere on earth was right here in our own backyard. (And for now we won’t dwell on the fact that rental costs now exceed the cost of building it in the first place – twice.)
Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop has said that the Scottish Government “is working hard to resolve the issues”. (Image: Scottish Parliament)
Events, dear boy, events, meant that ferries received an earlier outing in the election campaigning than might otherwise have been planned. Anas Sarwar and Russell Findlay both promised to bring CalMac and CMAL back together as one unitary body in response to the ongoing shambles. Ross Greer, for the Greens, promised free stuff (which in other news is essentially the totality of their campaign) and suggested islanders should get “up to” a year of free travel to compensate them for the disruption. John Swinney “very much” regretted the disruption. None of them suggested sourcing actual ferries.
Imagine if you can being wholly reliant on the train as the only mode of transport from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and imagine being denied a direct route in favour of one that takes you via Perth and Dundee before getting to your destination. That is the equivalent of what is being foisted on South Uist with depressing regularity. Even with that absurdity, I know some genius would point to ScotRail’s punctuality performance stats and suggest there wasn’t a problem.
South Uist’s plight has been briefly felt across almost all islands this week and no one liked it. We shouldn’t need near collapse to acknowledge the vulnerability but now it's been exposed – can we please get a bloody ferry?
Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and former general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations. He remains an advisor to both.