When Dunoon folk talk about the ferry service from Dunoon to Gourock, they’ve not simply got an old ferry service in mind. They mean a vehicle and passenger service.
And the Scottish Government has now admitted that this is what they are not going to get.
The headline of yesterday’s Herald article, to which we took exception as bound to mislead, was: ‘Race is on to stop EU rule stopping vital Clyde ferry’ technically referred to stopping any service on the route through a missed deadline. But Dunoon readers would immediately have read this as meaning that there was still a chance that the vehicle and passenger ferry service might yet have been saved.
This was dead in the water before the Herald set the article for printing and they will have been as aware of that as we were. We could not say last night that we knew it was definitely to be a passenger-only ferry because we knew that the story had been given to the local paper, the Dunoon Observer and we respected that.
This outcome to the replacement of the elderly CalMac ships that run the route, Jupiter and Saturn, has long been suspected – but each time the Government was challenged on it, supposedly reassuring statements were issued, saying that no decision had yet been made and that the process was ongoing.
The companies on the list of bidders reinforced the view that a passenger only ferry was inevitable – but the long-promised tender never appeared. This would, of course, have put the situation beyond argument.
The stooshie over the possibility that the Scottish Government will miss the deadline for the completion of the tendering service is no more than a confection. The EU is just as certain not to let the existing service go dead if the tendering process is not complete in time as the Government is certain to miss the deadline.
If the civil servants were able to complete the evaluation of the coming bids successfully in the 30 days allowed, it would be unprecedented. This is not going to be a straightforward business. Planning a paper schedule is one thing, delivering on it is a very different matter.
Current Transport Minister, Keith Brown will take a synthetic hammering for letting the publication of the tender specification and the tendering process run to and inevitably beyond the wire – but the fault rests squarely with former Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson – or with those who told him what to do.
It is only months since Stevenson sledged his way out of office and Brown hit the mogul field.
Stevenson has been in post since May 2007, immediately following an election campaign in which Jim Mather MSP, gave Dunoon unequivocal promises – in genuine good faith – on the replacement of the vehicle and passenger service.
Mather is patently an honourable man where Stevenson was equally obviously a stubborn and uncollegiate muddler – and not notably the possessor of political courage or any great work ethic.
What was he doing from May 2007 until his departure on the pistes of the M8 before Christmas 2010?
Professor Neil Kay’s energetic use of Freedom of Information legislation showed that the much claimed activity in negotiations with the EU on the matter of subsidy rules existed only in Stevenson’s imagination.
The Scottish Government’s excuses – for both the delay and for the inability to deliver the wanted vehicle-and-passenger service – feature in the statement issued to the Dunoon Observer. They are impotent and sophist in the extreme.
Cabinet Secretary for Finance, John Swinney, is quoted as saying that the process of ‘working to explore (not even as immediate an action as ‘exploring’) alternative means of providing a passenger and vehicle (and note the strategy of putting ‘passenger’ first, as if that were Dunoon’s first requirement)… has been fraught with intense commercial lobbying and threat of legal action from some quarters’.
The simple fact is that lobbyists may try to lobby but there is no requirement to listen to them. And the threat of legal action is only a threat if you’re not sure you’re on solid ground.
Mr Swinney says that this ‘intense commercial lobbying’ and this ‘threat of legal action from some quarters (code for Western Ferries) meant that the Government could not make any statement.
Nonsense. The silence was purely and feebly political and fear-borne. There has been plenty of time to move this matter forward and nothing has been done until this self-inflictedly late stage.
It should be clear to regular readers of For Argyll that we are not dumping blame for this avoidable mess on a Minister who is no longer around.
While the hapless Stevenson was in his post, For Argyll was calling him to account for a series of failures – of which the inaction on the Dunoon-Gourock ferry replacement was the most high profile – and was calling for his resignation.
In the end, however much Stevenson was directly responsible for the paralysis, the real responsibility belongs to his political masters.
They did not instruct him to come clean with Dunoon in good time that a vehicle-and-passenger ferry was not going to happen. They did not instruct him to get the tender specification out for a passenger only service. They ostriched and they left the Transport Minister in his post when he was clealy not capable of meeting its demands.
They too were indecisive, fearful of the political consequences and guilty of poor judgment.
Jim Mather has had to sit on the sidelines and take the flak for the stasis. Dunoon has had to wait and suspect, continually angry at their imagined gulling. Dunoon has always known the score.
In the end, Dunoon will get a passenger ferry from Dunoon town centre to Gourock town centre, linking with the raihead at the Gourock terminal. This is actually an appropriate route for a passenger only service.
The short vehicle (and passenger) ferry route from south of Gourock to north of Dunoon, run by Western Ferries, is perfectly capable for vehicle travel between Dunoon and Gourock and on to Glasgow. It is, in fact, more convenient for traffic leaving Cowal to go south on the mainland – or traffic from the mainland aiming to go north in Cowal.
The problem is that Dunoon fears the consequences of Western Ferries having a monopoly on vehicle traffic. It is unlikely that Western Ferries’credibility would survive any attempt to milk this situation and it is now up to Dunoon and Western Ferries to get together to thrash this out.
As a resident of mid Argyll I’m much less likely to have need of the these ferries than Cowal folk, but surely – given the long history of Western Ferries around the coasts of Argyll – there’s no way that they’d see the demise of the Calmac vehicle service as an opportunity to start ripping off the community that they depend on even more than it depends on them.
Abandoning the vehicle service between downtown Dunoon and the Gourock rail terminal surely makes it much easier to push for optimising the investment in really effective and economical to operate fast, comfortable passenger ferries, together with reconstruction of the Gourock terminal to provide easy sheltered transfer between boat and train. And the whole system must be disabled friendly, assuming that it isn’t already.
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“Jim Mather has had to sit on the sidelines and take the flak.”
Oh no he hasn’t.
If he was to act ‘in genuine good faith’ he should have resigned his ministerial role, gone onto the back benches, and demanded delivery on his promise.
It’s been done by ministers in Westminster over matters of principle, often to good effect – and there’s no reason why Holyrood should be any different.
That would have been an honourable course of action – and would certainly have served his constituents infinitely better than sitting on the sidelines.
“Dunoon has always known the score.”
Nonsense.
When the new linkspan was built in Dunoon to serve 21st century vehicle ferries, the then transport minister Nicol Stephens promised that there would be ships to serve it.
Are you seriously suggesting that the local populace believed that any government could squander megabucks on a terminal and associated faciliities for ferries that were never going to materialise?
Equally, are you suggesting that the people of Dunoon ‘knew the score’ yet were naive enough to vote in large numbers for Jiim Mather in the full knowledge that the promise he made would not be met?
Dunoon fears more that simply the consequences of a Western Ferries monopoly. It fears being bypassed.
The managing director of Western Ferries once commented positively that 50 percent of his traffic turned left and went into Dunoon. It therefore follows that the other 50 percent goes right and goes elsewhere.
All Calmac’s traffic goes through Dunoon – that’s the difference.
You describe the railhead route as ‘an appropriate route for a passenger-only service’.
Well, yes, since it’s at the railhead, I suspect most people could work that one out for themselves.
But have you any idea how often the current passenger-only service is disrupted by bad weather?
And why do you think Calmac gets a subsidy for carrying passengers?
Because carrying passengers loses money hand over fist – the cash cow is the transport of vehicles.
So when this service goes passenger only it’s going to need vast quantities of subsidy to operate it – and it’s certainly going to need bigger and more sea-friendly vessels than the solitary Ali Cat to provide an all-year-round service. It will certainly be interesting to see how much of the costs impinge on fares, for these are going to be damned expensive boats to run.
So the taxpayer, not just the people of Dunoon, will be the loser.
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For Bill Jardine: We agree with you about the impact that stronger action would have had.
Stevenson’s was allowed to get away with obduracy, non-consultation of colleagues and a slow work rate.
We imagine that the reason why he wasn’t replaced much earlier is the same reason why Jim Mather banged no tables (although that’s not his style anyway) – a shallow talent pool.
It is true, of course, that this situation at Holyrood would have given Mr Mather more leverage had a clearly able Minister threatened to go if the ferry situation was not addressed.
All of the Scottish parliamentary groups suffer from weakness in depth because their available talent is spread thinly between Holyrood and Westminster.
We see only two scenarios to address this:
independence
or a federated model, the need for which would be accelerated if or when the quite constitutionally improper position of England in the current arrangements is confronted.
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I don’t see why Dunoon fears being bypassed.
Surely far more than 50% of Western Ferries’ vehicle traffic is generated by the Dunoon area, if not the town centre, and it would be interesting to hear their view of this.
If the concern is for tourism, surely traffic headed for the rest of Argyll beyond Cowal wouldn’t use the ferry (and the tedious road through Greenock and Gourock) unless the Dunoon area was on the itinerary. Or they were following an idiot GPS
There seems to have been an awful lot of hot air generated by what has amounted to an excess of vehicle ferries ever since Western Ferries arrived on the scene; the investment in a town centre link span ‘to serve 21st century vehicle ferries’ was (with hindsight) a waste of money, and the sooner the Calmac route is seen as an extension of the Glasgow train service and single-mindedly financed and developed as such, the better for everyone.
It just so happens that the Martha’s Vineyard ferry described in the Google ad at the head of this item looks remarkably like what might suit the purpose just fine, if you imagine it painted in the new Scotrail colours.
The danger is that, unless someone keeps a very tight grip on whoever is writing the spec for new passenger boats, we’ll be paying for some all singing and dancing thing instead of much less for a proven fit-for-purpose off the shelf design, and will be stuck with boats far more costly to operate than they should be.
If you don’t believe me, compare the parallel histories of Calmac and Western Ferries over the years.
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A third scenario , scrap the unnecessary parliament in Edinburgh .
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Robert: You miss the point – it doesn’t matter how state-of-the-art a passenger ferry is, it is doomed to lose money like snow off a dyke – it will always be a drain on the public purse.
And what makes you think there are going to be new passenger ferries?
It’s much more likely that any tonnage for the route will be acquired second-hand.
I don’t know quite what you mean by parallel histories, but the fact is that since the early 1980s Calmac has been forced to run a restricted service. This has rendered it incapable of competing effectively, to Western Ferries’ great advantage.
On the same basis, Western claims there isn’t enough traffic on the route to justify two services. There is vastly more traffic now than there was when Western first appeared, so on what basis did they decide their service was a viable proposition?
I’m not attacking WF; I think they provide an excellent service, and over the years have built up strong links with the local community. I especially remember the late Alan Bradley, who was a superb ambassador for the company, a thorough gentlemen who had a strong community ethos.
Nor am I defending Calmac – in recent years their handling of the route has been diabolical and their PR skills utterly non-existent.
I could easily be persuaded that someone in Edinburgh was leaning on them to alienate the local community, because in that respect – and in that alone – they have exceeded all expectations.
The 50 percent quote is correct – what you choose to make of it is up to you – but I think my interpretation is a fair one, and clearly it refers to incoming, not outgoing traffic.
Of course Dunoon generates far more of Western’s traffic – if it’s a choice of driving straight onto a boat at Hunter’s Quay or hanging about for an hour waiting for a Calmac ferry – which would you chose?
And Newsroom: Your argument is somewhat self-defeating. Scotland is a country – or a nation – of five million people.
If the talent pool is indeed so shallow, then where are you going to find people with the ability to run an independent country?
The fact that too many of the parties – particularly the Unionists – are packed with failed councillors and MSPs whose sole ambition is to become MPs and get to play with the big boys in Westminster.
Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon are streets ahead of the rest of the pack in Holyrood.
Which, I’m afraid, is a measure of the rest of the pack.
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Bill, if the split is 50/50, then with Western’s 600k cars 300k will head to dunoon. With CalMac carrying 60k and a similar split 30k will by pass dunoon to the South. Also, how can Dunoon be isolated if it is not an island?
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Others know a great deal more than I do about the long and contorted history of ferry services to Dunoon, but what’s more important – a seemingly endless blamegame, prevarication, political point scoring and general troublemaking, or concentrating on what’s needed and working out how to do it?
Why on earth should Dunoon require a second vehicle ferry service, when the current service provided by Western Ferries seems excellent – or is there some underlying prejudice against a private operator?
Why should public money go to finance a competing vehicle operation? Is there a capacity problem with Western Ferries? If the only real concern is vehicle charges rising in the absence of competition there must be some way of auditing Western Ferries’ costs as a check on profiteering – although I do believe that scenario is in the realms of the paranoid.
Why should it be accepted as fact that a passenger ferry is ‘doomed to lose money like snow off a dyke’ – if I lived in Dunoon and commuted to central Glasgow there’s no way I would drive if there was a fast, comfortable boat with a seamless train connection at Gourock, and a purely passenger boat should be far cheaper to crew and operate than a more cumbersome vehicle ferry.
My recollection of Gourock ferry terminal – admittedly a few years ago – is that Scotrail and Railtrack (as Network Rail then was) had lost the plot completely as far as trying to operate trains coordinated with boats was concerned; the terminal was definitely not fit for purpose and must be a substantial deterrant to passenger traffic. Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority were presumably far more interested in attending football matches in Manchester than in the dismal state of Gourock station.
But – if fuel costs skyrocket as predicted – won’t the demand start to move from vehicles to passengers?
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Bill,
On your cash cow point according to Cowal Ferry accounts to March 2010 (http://www.david-macbrayne.co.uk/reports) of the £4.9m revenue only £900k relates to vehicle income, giving a profit of £300k, therefore only just paying its way. Therefore the passenger element is already costing the tax payer £2.7m.
Obviously with newer tonnage (better in bad weather) with reduced costs will hopefully slash the cost to the taxpayer.
On the politics point, I agree. Jim Mather made his promise, got elected and has done nothing obvious to deliever it, unless given his statement in the Observer, I wonder if he was involved in the meetings with the commercial operator. Interestingly today’s Herald states that the Government were told last year that the tender had to be passenger only but he and others failed to come clean to the community. Instead warm but oblique statements from all in Government continued. One has to make one’s own mind up as to whether this was honourable behaviour given what has now transpired.
The new linkspan in Dunoon was a council matter, and let’s not start a new conversation on the millions wasted on this and other white elephant transport projects whilst schools in the area face being closed down.
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Donald: I didn’t say Dunoon was isolated, so I don’t really understand your point.
As for 50 percent of Calmac’s traffic going south – to where?
In terms of population all that there is to the south of Dunoon are the villages of Innellan and Toward, so it stands to reason that the bulk of the traffic will head north through the town.
Robert: You are asking why Dunoon requires a second ferry service.
Don’t ask me – ask Western – historically they ARE the second ferry service – Dunoon-Gourock was Calmac’s prime route for years, long before Western came on the scene.
Public money doesn’t finance a second vehicle ferry operation – it subsidises the passenger-carrying element. And arguably that subsidy would be unnecessary if the route had decent ships running an unrestricted service.
No argument about the state of Gourock station, although in all fairness Calmac has excellent shoreside facilities for its passengers there.
And as you rightly point out, there is little co-ordination in the so- called ‘integrated transport system’ which is hardly going to encourage foot passengers.
Passenger vessels aren’t necessarily cheaper to crew – the reverse is usually the case, for it’s passenger numbers that dictate crew sizes – which is one of the reasons why Calmac’s streakers have much larger crews than Western’s vessels.
Of course you could run a passenger ferry without a subsidy – as long as you charged passengers a king’s ransom to travel on it.
And fuel costs don’t just impinge on cars, they impinge on ships and trains too, and consequently drive fares upwards.
Re “concentrating on what’s needed and working out how to do it” that’s exactly what Jim Mather promised to do……”
And you might ask the question – significantly missing from this article: why did the Scottish Government, supposedly determined to avoid a monopoly arising, offered Western the chance to run a ferry between the railhead and the linkspan at Dunoon?
Not exactly joined-up thinking, is it?
I really have no more to add to this thread. My presence is required in the booze boutique.
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Donald:
Sorry, I missed your second posting while I was writing mine. I haven’t seen the Herald article, so thanks for letting me know about it.
Re the linkspan, my understanding is the council’s intention was to build a breakwater to protect the pier, and the linkspan was added at the insistence of the Scottish Government, then a Labour/Libdem coalition.
It was certainly they who claimed the credit for it, because Nicol Stephen came to open it.
What a parcel of rogues in a nation indeed…it reinforces the old saying: “Don’t vote – a politician will get in”.
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Robert, go to http://www.brocher.com and read past posts about the ferries. That will give you the arguements and evidence that a lot of what you are saying is actually not the case. PASSENGER ONLY needs massive subsidy, and unrestricted vehicle and passenger service could mean NO subsidy for the passengers is needed because of the revenue generated by the vehicles. No brainer! Passenger only can’t have fares high enough to make it commercially viable, but we need that town head to town head link. Passenger only ferries are in danger of being in hopeless little ships that can’t cope with the weather and are therefore unreliable – the Alley Cat is likely to kill off commuting to work as is unreliable. The town needs both services, and if left to Western only you will find Hunters Quay clogged up more and more, ditto the road at MacInroys Point. It is a shame we keep having to go over the same old points when the case has been thoroughly made from all angles – go have a read!
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Pingback: Argyll News: McGrigor asks how community enterprise could participate in Dunoon-Gourock ferry route :Argyll,Dunoon Gourock ferry,Jamie McGrigor MSP,social enterprise company, | For Argyll
Don’t want to intrude on the heavy political debate, but I think the Juno was withdrawn in 2007 and the Jupiter is the other elderly lady seen on the route.
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For Calum Kennedy: Of course it is – and thanks for the correction – now in place. ‘Juno’ always lodged in our imagination for some reason and it’s odd to think that she no longer plies the route.
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http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2011/02/18091820
See clause C in the penultimate paragraph.
Vehicles may be carried, should the incoming operator choose to offer that facility.
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For Archie MacAfferty: Could any tender for a passenger-only service be competitive in gaining that contract if it ran a boat capable of carrying vehicles?
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The tender document’s probably rubbish if it leaves open the option to carry vehicles as well as passengers, as this would tie the ferry’s docking position at Gourock to down at the linkspan rather than up as close as possible to the trains.
This is essential to make a real success of a ‘seamless’ passenger journey between Dunoon and Glasgow, to maximise the attraction of public transport versus the car, to make a success of the passenger service and to minimise the financial drain of operating it..
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