Comment posted A83: Hazard warnings back in place by Robert Wakeham.
It’s a pity you feel unable to ask them.
Robert Wakeham also commented
- You’re right – a tunnel would solve the landslide problem, and the road would be less vulnerable to disruption by winter weather. However, until there’s greater clarity from Transport Scotland on what their surveys and studies lead them to recommend for fixing the problem there’s no point in talking about it, unlike your situation at Dunoon where no ferry would be immune to stormy weather, making a tunnel worth considering now, before large sums of money are committed to the ferry system.
- If you substituted ‘charges’ or ‘fares’ for ‘profits’ every time you complained about WF it’d look a bit less like your real gripe was against a company running a profitable business.
- Ferryman: one of the problems – the weather – could disrupt the daily journey to work whatever sort of ferry service you have, so there’s something about your attitude that just doesn’t add up, because when people mention the idea of a tunnel (weatherproof) you immediately look for an excuse to pour scorn on them – you’re your own worst enemy.
- For goodness sake, Ferryman, to use an old-fashioned analogy you’re like a stuck gramophone needle.
Recent comments by Robert Wakeham
- McGrigor supports small scale hydro schemes but is concerned about lack of grid connectivity
If not ‘bitter’, then how about ‘negative’, ‘petty’, or just plain miserable?
Effective ways of providing energy for this country is an increasingly fraught subject, with government commitment to ‘green’ power leading to the perception that our politicians are swimming with sharks, and a proliferation of wind farms that are good for some sectors of the local economy but which are a major cause of price inflation.
And the Kintyre / Arran power emergency this spring served to highlight the fact that large scale wind generated electricity can be likened to a rough single malt – no use unless it’s blended with other spirit to make it palatable.
I live in hope that SSE’s Sound of Islay tidestream power project will prove more user-friendly – as are the hydro power plants described by Jamie McGrigor, as far as I can gather.
Here in mid Argyll we’re being shown the next windfarm proposal – 25 turbines for Electricite de France above Brenfield, which would form a backdrop to Ardrishaig, and would be so close to the recently unveiled proposals by E.ON for up to 24 turbines above Inverneill as to be semi-detached.
That’s up to 49MW plus up to 90MW, that would all presumably have to be ‘blended’ with power from elsewhere to make it digestible, and if anyone thought that ‘fast breeder’ only referred to a type of nuclear reactor, just look at the emerging cluster of wind farms south of Ardrishaig. - Argyll Flyer spotted going into Ardmaleish yard on Bute this afternoon
Doesn’t the SPTE have a remit to co-ordinate public transport provision here? – maybe I’m imagining it, or maybe they’re just pretending, or maybe they’re only really interested in Strathclyde bus services and the Glasgow subway (on the basis that only a tiny proportion of voters use the Gourock ferries, and politics is all) - 31 hour shout Tobermory Lifeboat’s longest ever, ending in joint operation with Oban lifeboat
The Oban Times reported on 6th June on the MAIB report on a similar incident last July when a small container ship rammed the Isle of Bute, and apparently legal action is ongoing. - Refloated cargo ship MV Fri Ocean escorted to Lynn of Lorne – and on into Oban
Not being a mariner, I wonder why – in this day and age of almost universal use of radar (and GPS?) for navigation – ships don’t seem to be equipped with a proximity alarm, a bloody great klaxon fit to waken the dead, that is triggered if the boat closes with an identifiable hazard.
It would have to be capable of deactivation in harbour areas and, eg, places like the Corran Narrows – but would surely be invaluable, especially at night.
Maybe it would be seen as a dangerous threat to the need for proper watch keeping. - Auchindrain in crisis: facing paying off its two permanent staff
Considering how all the wind farm developers are so keen (and can clearly afford) to provide substantial funding to help local community ventures, this is surely a prime example of an exceptionally good local cause with national significance.
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The Western Ferries crossing of the Firth of Clyde has been mentioned on the BBC as an alternative route.
How long can the politicians leave in place a situation where an integral part of the transport network is run by a private monopoly with no control on profits?
They don’t even have a published set of fares for commercial vehicles.
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If you substituted ‘charges’ or ‘fares’ for ‘profits’ every time you complained about WF it’d look a bit less like your real gripe was against a company running a profitable business.
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Not at all, I want them to make a profit – just not an excessive one. If you set the fare or charges they might make a loss, I don’t want that.
They do though provide the only vehicle crossing of the Firth of Clyde. One that we can see is important, particularly when the A83 closes. Given all the fuss over tolls on the Skye Bridge (maximum charge £6?) why it acceptable to have a private company charging £20 for a short ferry crossing (billion pound Firth of Forth bridge crossings being free to use)?
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Very few ferry companies, private or otherwise, make their rates for commercial vehicles public, and for very good reason. Just ask CalMac how much they used to charge Charlle Black for his empty bread wagons! Oh, that’s right, they got caught for that one, didn’t they?!!!
At least Western Ferries run extra boats when the road is shut. The first time it was closed by a landslide, about 5 years ago if I recall correctly, what did CalMac do? HEE-HAW. And they had boats available to put on too.
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What did they charge Blacks?
What did they get “caught” for?
I cannot really respond if you don’t give details.
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Why would WF not publish their commercial ferry rates?
You say they have good reason for doing so, does that mean if they were to publish them it might encourage competition, or that local people would be shocked at the costs added to goods and services reaching them?
Maybe the charges are really low, so why not publish?
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Also I just checked but, as an example, Brittany Ferries don’t charge commercial rates for vans unless they are over 6.5m but WF will charge commercial rates on a minibus (people) over 5m.
I stuck details of a laden 7m van into a website and was quoted cross channel prices from DFS Seaways, P&O Ferries, the Channel Tunnel, Transmanche Ferries and TranEuropa. There were several more but I stopped once the cross channel price was twice what I have heard the cross Firth of Clyde price is.
How much do WF ferries charge commercial vehicles and why don’t they publish?
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It’s a pity you feel unable to ask them.
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http://forargyll.com/2012/02/council-plans-to-attract-votes-with-some-belated-work-on-roads/
http://forargyll.com/2010/09/a83-partially-blocked-by-landslide/
http://forargyll.com/2012/01/transport-minister-reveals-potential-for-a-far-larger-landslip-on-a83/
http://forargyll.com/2011/04/traffic-scotland-warn-of-landslide-risk-on-a83-at-rest-and-be-thankful/
I can see this subject going on and on and on and on…
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Absolutely.
And the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow is not helpful.
We live with three negatives:
endessly checking and worrying if the road will be open in the morning/afternoon/night when you need to use it (where else do you have to do this?);
driving through that section on the Rest when the Wig Wag signs are on, knowing that ‘extreme caution’ can only mean ‘Don’t go’;
and feeling rhythms in Argyll slow and stall every time the road has to close.
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You would have to do endless checking of weather forecasts if you want to get to work, college, hospital, the airport etc. using the passenger ferry service between Dunoon and Gourock which has bathtubs too small to cope with the weather.
What is your problem newsroom, it is not like the A83 is the only road, surely people are spoilt for choice? Nobody has put an alternative in place so clearly there is no demand is there? Why not let a private company run the A83 and charge tolls, would you be against that if so why?
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For goodness sake, Ferryman, to use an old-fashioned analogy you’re like a stuck gramophone needle.
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I am sorry but people who use the Argyll Ferries service have to check how they are going to get to an from work on a daily basis.
Newsroom seems to think that is unacceptable for a road, what is the difference. The solution for the ferries will cost a lot less than the eventual solution for the A83.
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Ferryman: one of the problems – the weather – could disrupt the daily journey to work whatever sort of ferry service you have, so there’s something about your attitude that just doesn’t add up, because when people mention the idea of a tunnel (weatherproof) you immediately look for an excuse to pour scorn on them – you’re your own worst enemy.
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RW: the current ferries are too small to cope with the weather that is why people are unsure, even in summer, about getting to and from work.
I pour scorn on people who just come up with vacuous ideas. You mention tunnels but have no idea whatsoever about costs, traffic volumes etc. We might just as well discuss using airships or Star Trek transporters.
Why are you not suggesting tunnels to solve the A83 problem, they would be under the landslides?
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You’re right – a tunnel would solve the landslide problem, and the road would be less vulnerable to disruption by winter weather. However, until there’s greater clarity from Transport Scotland on what their surveys and studies lead them to recommend for fixing the problem there’s no point in talking about it, unlike your situation at Dunoon where no ferry would be immune to stormy weather, making a tunnel worth considering now, before large sums of money are committed to the ferry system.
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