Thanks, CalMac: The only ferry you can rely on is the one that takes you away |
When the only reliable ferry is the one that takes you away, it says everything about the state of a lifeline – and the value placed on those who depend on it, says Herald columnist Calum Steele.
There are few things like contemplating a trip home to the Hebrides (and South Uist in particular) to test the resolve of giving up swearing for Lent. Okay, I confess I haven’t actually given up swearing for Lent, as in a world as mad as this one it would be a herculean endurance to do so, but it would be fair to say I have uttered considerably more profanities than usual as I attempted to navigate the increasingly labyrinthine pages of the Caledonian MacBrayne website just to book a ferry westward.
True to form, the sailings to South Uist are disrupted. In truth, they are cancelled, but calling them cancelled would mean the now non-existent sailings would have to feature in the creative world of CalMac reliability stats – and would shoot that most resilient of foxes trumpeted by folk who once spent an afternoon in Millport – that 95% of sailings (including the near eighty daily crossings to and from Cumbrae) are undertaken without any issues.
But here we are yet again – and it seems – yet again – that those who neither live nor are connected to South Uist have decided the island and those who call it home can be abandoned, as their ferry is removed for “vessel deployment requirements” right at the start of what should be the summer timetable season, and just in time to wreak havoc to Easter travel plans.
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To be frank, us Uibhisteachs are beyond sick of the contempt shown to our island as CalMac helpfully, and without any apparent self-awareness or hint of irony, let us know there are many ways of getting to South Uist – including across the Sound of Harris from Lewis and Harris – the logic of which I will return to shortly. For the time being, however, and in many ways the perfect brutal metaphor for what is happening to the island, the last direct sailing will be one that allows you to leave.
South Uist folk have suffered a pitiful ferry service for years. In all that time, they have never pitted their island against the needs of others. Not once have they suggested another island should lose their ferry service so they don’t have to. But let’s look at that CalMac logic and reasoning – there are many other ways…
Woe betide the Kintyre peninsula – already a victim of a poor service as that is actually attached to the rest of Scotland. Woe betide too Bute, as that ferry from Rothesay isn’t really needed, given the short hop across from Rhubodach (and could save a fortune closing Wemyss Bay in the process). We could also dispense with the ferries from Uig, Tarbert, Lochmaddy and Castlebay, as the crossings in the Sound of Harris and Barra render the rest redundant. Or even better, we could swap out Stornoway for Lochboisdale, as Ullapool doesn’t really have use beyond the Stornoway route. We could close Ardrossan and Brodick ports, as the ferry from Lochranza is still there, and let’s be honest – three ferries is a bit greedy, isn’t it? And as for the plethora of options to Mull, surely the Tobermory sailing to Kilchoan is more than enough to satisfy one island.
All of these are, of course, preposterous options, but imagine the outrage for a second if they were not. The socio-economic impact on all of these communities would be devastating. Vibrant, thriving communities would begin to decline, and depopulation and neglect would become new issues for a new quango or development group to have endless meetings to create strategies to tackle.
Yet this is the reality that has been visited on South Uist for close to 13 years now. Thirteen years where one island, and only one island, has had deliberately ruinous challenges foisted onto its population and businesses, causing many to simply be lost. Thirteen years over which the sustained punishment being meted out by CalMac has cost the local economy millions of pounds in lost bedroom stays, lost breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and lost discretionary spends. A community that relies on the ability to move people and goods to survive is having its life slowly but deliberately squeezed out as a result of conscious neglect.
What was once a destination of choice increasingly becomes a one- or two-night stop-over, as ferry uncertainty compels would-be visitors to build plans that centre on other ports. Tourism confidence is low, business confidence even lower. Cancelled accommodation bookings and the associated revenue they could have been expected to bring cost one hotelier alone over £8,500 a month last season. This one is already shaping up to be even harder.
It took the Scottish Government 12 years before it even acknowledged the economic vandalism being visited on South Uist as a result of its persistent neglect at the hands of CalMac. Even then, its £4.4 million “resilience fund”, announced to support the island communities most severely affected by ferry cancellations, has turned out to be as easy to navigate as a trip to South Uist itself. Nigh-on impossible qualifying criteria, and an expansion of eligibility to the wider ferry network, has resulted in less than 4% of the fund being paid to a handful of businesses across the island worst impacted by the ongoing debacle.
In 2023 South Uist residents took their ferry protest to Glasgow (Image: Colin Mearns)
Stand that in contrast with the speed, the fanfare and photo opportunities that accompanied the First Minister as he announced a £10m resilience fund to support the 71 businesses affected by the fire on Union Street in Glasgow little over a fortnight ago. Some might suggest there is more than a hint of an imbalance to the priorities, or heaven forfend – an election looming.
After 13 years of mismanagement and a belated, half-hearted and nigh on impossible to access resilience fund, the story of South Uist can be told in a single, inescapable truth: the only ferry you can rely on is the one that takes you away. Families, businesses, visitors, young people trying to stay, return, or carve out a life for themselves in this beautiful but fragile corner of Scotland are completely reliant on the support of the state to be able to do so, and the state if nothing else is consistent in its increasingly ambivalent attitude to those obligations to them. In the end, it’s not the cancellations that matter – it’s that no one important enough will notice.
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.