Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson’s blithe announcement that he is to extend the RET (Road Equivalent Tariff) scheme for a further year, giving it a total of 42 months duration will not play well in Argyll.
Many of the Argyll islands excluded from it wee angry enough in the first place, making a powerful case that a three year pilot was long enough to embed visiting habits in a generation of visitors attracted by the outer islands by the much cheaper ferry fares.
A further year cannot do anything but cause alarm and raise the issue of whether the additional funding pumped into extending the pilot as it is would have been better and more fairly spent on including the Argyll west coast islands.
Then there’s the Dunoon-Gourock ferry decision still to come – the publication of the specification put out to tender and the final service implemented.
Dunoon taught the rest of Argyll a memorable political lesson in the way it mobilised a determined campaign that quickly brought politicians to heel in the seriousness with which that town meant what it said: ‘No boats. No votes’.
Watch the water – it will be a real issue.
“The financial context in which we are operating has changed since the Ferries Review was initiated. We are now operating in an environment where there is less money available to invest in and support ferry services” (From the Executive Summary of the Scottish Government Consultation Document presented to the people of Dunoon and Cowal by Scottish Government officials, August 23rd 2010, para 4)
“There is no consistent approach across the country to the funding and procurement of ferry services” Ibid (para 5)
“The £22 million Road Equivalent Tariff scheme, which from October 2008 has reduced ferry fares to the Outer Isles, Tiree, and Coll by up to 50%, had been due to end next spring. However, it has now been announced that it will continue until spring 2012 at an additional cost of £6.5m.” The Herald, 1 September 2010)
The extension of the RET pilot was welcomed in the Western Isles. Local SNP MSP Alasdair Allan said: “This news comes after much lobbying of Government ministers …” The Press and Journal, 1st September 2010)
Neil Kay, a Cowal resident
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
I don’t quiet understand the point that Professor Kay is trying to make.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Answer to Jim Clark – I have found that that most people in Argyll who read these quotes together (especially those in Dunoon and Cowal) understand the point well enough, which is frankly all that really matters.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Let’s not forget about Jim Mather’s promises in support of a Campbeltown/Ballycastle service either
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Has some one who does not live in Argyll and Bute, but travels into the area regularly on business, so therefore have an interest in the ferry issue and RET, I would be grateful for a bit of enlightenment.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Here on Islay we have 2 boats running transporting the ‘privileged minority’ to and from their holiday houses on Islay (400houses at the last count, Lord Robertson of Western Ferries has one on Islay) – they don’t need RET and put too much strain on CalMac. They make more money than us, have more money than us because where their main residence is the cost of living is significantly lower than ours – they fly/sail in and out like parasitic Cuckoo birds sucking the life off the islands.
A discount/RET for Island residents and goods coming and going from our island communities is the answer, in my opinion, the Cuckoos and camper vans can pay that bit extra for the strain they put on the ferries and if I were the SNP I would be looking at who they were elected to serve and by whom!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
What has clearly happened is that the public relations horror and electoral disaster that the RET pilot has stored up for the Government has finally dawned on someone in Edinburgh.
No, I am not talking about the public relations horror and electoral disaster that it will create for it in Argyll and Bute, that has already happened. I am talking about the public relations horror and electoral disaster that it would create for it in the Western Isles where this “experiment” has already cost £22mill.
The RET pilot was due to end Spring next year. The penny finally dropped that Calmac will introduce their Summer timetables around end of March and that as things stood the end of the RET pilot would mean the Summer timetables would have to show a doubling of many of the current fares back up to their pre-RET levels – just weeks before the Holyrood election in May.
Of course there may be reasons other than defering electoral trauma as to why the Government is spending an extra £6.5mill on Western Isles to extend the RET pilot there by another year. If anyone has any other rational explanations it would be good to hear them.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Jim Mather and the SNP have broken their promise to restart the Campbeltown / Northern Ireland ferry link .
It will cost them many votes in the Kintyre area .
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Surly the SNP are not going to abuse £6.5mill (just) on the Western Isles to extend their pet project/RET until after the next election they have probably already lost.
The SNP were elected to lead – not to defer a decision on our life-line ferry service for their own egos. What an open goal that would be for them, and if they are not elected again for another 50years they will have a long time to digest the reasons why and could distroy the chance of an independent Scotland – their reason for being.
I am in no doubt that the SNP were put in power by the West Coast they have done very little for. It wasn’t that long ago I watched a documentary on the Tory Party’s almost total political obliteration in Scotland because our people seen the Tory’s as anit-community i.e. “There is no such a thing as society” the ‘iron lady’ once said or words to that effect.
Our new Tory ‘big brother’ David Cameron/1984 has a holiday house on the Isle of Jura and has the cheek to use the buzz words “The Big Society” – I don’t have a holiday house or want one – nor will ever the majoraty of “The Big Society” either have one. David Cameron/1984 isn’t fit to govern Scotland or even have a mandate to do so and the Lib-Dems have went to bed with the wolves – and at 35years old I have yet to be inspired to use my vote.
The West of Scotland use to be a political power house where ALBA was born – now its just a holiday camp and Clair Marples, Drymen’s letter in this weeks Oban Times regarding the refused Cononish gold mine and I quote an extract from that letter “Do the revered tourists that we rely on for short term seasonal employment pay any local taxes here? Where will anyone’s income come from should another bout of swine fever or foot and mouth sweep the country and put it in quarantine?”
I am sure the answer to Clair’s questions are more-holiday-houses-coming-soon, and as for the SNP and their reason for being, we on the islands live on the edge – we are priced off our land AND out our houses by the very people elected to protect us, CalMac is our NHS and time it was treated as such!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0