Alan Parker, Vice Chair of the Argyll and the Islands branch Continue reading
Tag Archives: Argyll islands
Visitor air delights – Argyll needs to learn from Orkney
Argyll SO needs to get clued up. Continue reading
Mischief afoot as LibDem MEP uses Brussels to query RET legality
George Lyon, the LibDem Scottish MEP, formerly the LibDem MSP for Argyll and Bute Continue reading
Stewart Stevenson could single-handedly lose Argyll for the SNP
Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson’s blithe announcement Continue reading
Take a seaplane to golf in Argyll: Kintyre, Islay, Loch Lomond ahead
How’s this for a unique experience in Argyll? Courtesy of the Golf Links Express, an offshoot of the award-winning Continue reading
Doomed Renfrew-Yoker ferry to be replaced by Amfibus?
The decision has been taken to close the traditional passenger Continue reading
For Argyll is moving…
…in more ways than one. We’re moving up in traffic growth and we’re moving hosts. Continue reading
Fellow Highlands MSPs join Jamie McGrigor’s campaign to continue Bull Hire scheme
Highland MSP, Jamie McGrigor is progressively gaining ground in his efforts to ensure some form of effective continuation of Scotland’s Bull Hire scheme.
The Labour group at Holyrood tabled an amendment from Sarah Boyack at Holyrood yesterday, calling for a continuation of the Bull Hire Scheme and this was accepted late in the debate by the Scottish Government.
The move follows a cross party letter from Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives seeking discussions with the Government on securing a way forward for the Bull Hire Scheme. Ministers in Parliament yesterday signalled they were prepared to have such discussions.
Following an announcement by the Scottish Government that they were to scrap the scheme – which provides healthy bulls to groups of crofters and small farmers – Peter Peacock, Rhoda Grant and David Stewart were part of a vigorous campaign to save it. They, Jamie McGrigor and fellow Highlands MSP campaigner on the issue, Dave Thompson, received responses from hundreds of crofters from the Western Isles, Skye and Lochalsh, the Argyll Islands, Lochaber, Ross-shire, Shetland and Badenoch and Strathspey.
Rhoda Grant is herself the daughter of a Wester Ross crofter, and acting Labour spokesperson on rural affairs. She says: ‘Yesterday, in Brussels, I had meetings with Commission Officials who made clear that the Bull Hire Scheme could continue well into the future under the current arrangements. Against that background I give a cautious welcome to what appears to be some movement from the Government on this important issue but we will need much more detail before we can make a judgement on any replacement scheme and I hope that leads to a reversal of their position to date.
‘There is widespread dismay at the effects scrapping it would cause and the onus is on the government to find a way in which it can work. Its loss would have a detrimental effect on crofters’ and farmers’ ability to keep cattle in our most fragile areas and where it had continued there would have been an impact on the health and quality of stock.
‘This scheme has many benefits and as well as offering continued support to those keeping livestock I am hopeful that this will secure the jobs of those highly skilled staff who are involved in providing the bull hire scheme’.
Argyll’s Loganair airlinks now secure until 2013
A recent tendering has seen Loganair emerge with a renewed contract to operate the air services between Glasgow and Campbeltown, Tiree and Barra in the Western Isles. This new contract will run from 1st April 2009 until 31st March 2013.
All three service contracts have been awarded under Public Service Obligations (PSOs). These require a minimum of two return trips a day between Glasgow and Campbeltown (excepting weekends) and one return trip a day between Glasgow and Tiree and Barra (excepting Sundays).
These airlinks are crucial to community and economic life in Argyll’s islands and remote places. The renewed contracts have been welcomed by Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson for thieir support for local economies and their continuing extension of Argyll’s transport system.
Tavish Scott says recession aggravates Argyll Islands’ disadvantage in ferry fares
Shetland MSP and Leader of the Scottish Liberal democrats, Tavish Scott, has drawn attention to a new cost differential on living in and visiting the islands excluded from the Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) pilot scheme. The recession is driving an increasing gap in ferry fares between the islands of Orkney, Shetland and Argyll with the Western Isles and others incuded in the scheme.
Mr Scott says that while the islands in the 30 month RET pilot scheme have their ferry fares stabilised until 2010 the others, including almost all of the Argyll islands are looking at fare increases of inflation plus 0.5%.
However, a spokesperson for the Scottish Government has refuted Mr Scott’s argument, pointing out that the Government has absorbed almost all of the fuel cost increases which would have affected all ferry fares. She also said that, in addition, the Government has given additional financial support of around £29m to NorthLink Ferries to operate the services to Shetland and Orkney. That, however, does not help Argyll.
There are Argyll islands, like Colonsay, already facing a situation where it is considerably cheaper for visitors to get to its neighbouring island of Coll which is included in the RET scheme. It is hard to argue that the combined impact of inflation and recession – which tightens everyone’s domestic budget – will not induce summer visitors to take the ferry to Coll rather than to other Argyll islands such as the Islay group of which Colonsay is one.
The concern for such disadvantaged islands is that almost three years of this competitive disadvantage may be enough to cement visitor habits, leaving a legacy of longer term sidelining.
Note: The Road Equivalent Tariff pilot scheme is measuring the impact on island life and economies of limiting ferry fares to the cost of a road journey of equivalent distance. If it is successful in supporting both islanders and those visiting the islands it is intended to be adopted, creating cheaper fares for all Scottish island communities.