For Argyll

The Isle f Jura’s 190 residents are angry and concerned about the reduction to their ferry service which has resulted from the new slipway built at Port Askaig on Islay. This leaves them with a reduced ferry service - a situation that may not be resolved for ten years when the existing little ferry is due for replacement. It also leaves them with the very real anxiety of being unreachable by the Ambulance service on two nights a week.

The slipway in question was built as part of a multi-million pound upgrade of Port Askaig harbour in which Argyll and Bute Council improved the linkspan facility for the large CalMac ferry running to mainland Argyll via Kennacraig in West Loch Tarbert.

Islay and Jura are separated by the narrow Sound of Islay which, at nine knots, has the fastest bore in the UK. The new slip has been built at an angle which does not allow for the rise and fall of the tide in the Sound. The crews of the small lifeline ferry which runs across the Sound from Port Askaig to Feolin on Jura are said to have refused to operate from the new slip. Instead, they are using the Calmac linkspan - but obviously when the ferry is in (every afternoon and every Monday and Friday night), this is not available to them.

Islander, Dick Mayes, has produced an item in the Community Newssheet which details the specifics of the problem. He says: ‘If the ramp is placed securely on the slip. the end plates are hinged at such a sharp angle that cars ground on them. You can load cars if the very end of the ramp is resting on the very edge of the slip. However, it doesn’t take much imagination to see that if the ferry rocks and rolls the ramp won’t be resting on the slip anymore, with potentially disastrous consequences for vehicle and occupants.’

Jura’s GP, Dr Moray Grigor, in adding his own concerns, said: ‘ In daylight hours air evacuation of patients from Jura can take place directly by the Air Ambulance helicopter. At night, however, the helicopter can only land at Islay airport. No ferry service ( the two nights the CalMac ferry docks at Port Askaig) therefore means no overnight evacuation save by the RAF, which in most cases would be completely inappropriate, as well as massively expensive. All for the want of a proper ferry slip.’

The Jura Community Newssheet claims that the Council and its contractors ‘were made aware, by the people who were going to use it, that the chosen design was not going to work’. Jura Community Council is calling a public meeting to allow the Council and its contractors to say ‘when and how they are going to fix the problem’.