Smiles of relief have replaced grimaces of despair on South Uist as CalMac announced the return of their ferry MV Lord of the Isles to the island’s Lochboisdale-Mallaig route this week as part of a veritable tsunami of good transport news as aged ferries return and news ones are launched .
SUBIG are calling for the Transport Minister, CalMac’s Directors including mainland based CEO Duncan Mackison and its Danish Chair Erik Østergaard, to honour their promises to South Uist of just three years ago when, after losing the ferry for most of June, the island was assured its ferry would no longer be the first to be cancelled and the last to be returned.
Yet Lochboisdale last saw a ferry service seven weeks ago, on 27 March. South Uist is widely recognised as having been by far the worst affected island in the ferry crisis of recent years. Two separate independent economic studies have put the loss to the island economy at millions of £s even before reputational damage is considered.
“Why is South Uist the Directors’ first choice to lose its ferry every time another ship breaks down?” questioned John Daniel Peteranna, member of SUBIG.
“What happened to the promises to share the pain across the network? We need a guarantee from CalMac and the Scottish Government that South Uist will not be the first to suffer next time.”
But the return of the ferry means that for now at least life is looking up. “South Uist has businesses keen to thrive, from agriculture to distilling, and from tourism to music & cultural heritage. The return of the island’s ferry is a relief to us all” says John Daniel.
And with 10 services a week now serving South Uist, the business group is calling on CalMac to cut fares on the route by 50% for the remainder of the summer timetable to encourage travel and rebuild confidence in the route.
“Uist is a wonderful island to visit, full of wildlife, archaeological history, and a landscape like no other. Having restored the ferry service, CalMac now need to repair the reputational damage to the island’s accessibility and restore confidence in the service by cutting fares for the rest of summer and working to ensure the route’s reliability” said John Daniel.
Meanwhile, the business group has been counting the days carefully since the Scottish Parliament election, with an eye on the SNP’s promise of a £10 million resilience fund to be announced within 20 days of being re-elected, aimed at the islands most seriously affected by this latest ferry fiasco.
Earlier it was reported that a new ferry for the routes between Uig on Skye, Tarbert and Lochmaddy was launched in Türkiye recently and will now undergo outfitting, testing, commissioning, and sea trials before delivery later this year. MV Claymore was launched at the Cemre Marin Endustri shipyard in Yalova by Mary Morrison who was the former Port Manager at Lochmaddy and footage of the launch can be viewed on Youtube here.
And MV Hebrides returned on the Little Minch run yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 13 May) following work to address a leak on her bow visor seal. The work came at the end of her planned annual overhaul. By the end of this week, all major vessel routes are expected to have planned levels of service and usual vessels will be in place on Coll, Colonsay, Mull, South Uist and Tiree. All other routes served by major vessels were already operating normally.
