By Professor John Robertson OBA, former Chair Faculty Research Ethics Committee, UWS and Global Ferry Correspondent 2025 and 2025
My post yesterday on the Arran ferry service has stirred up more anger and snidey ‘Professor’ abuse [rare in TuS] than we get normally. You can read them here:
The entitled tone of much of the anonymous (of course) comment reminded me of this I posted in December 2024 in response to comment on the Mull service but also covering the Arran service.
Headlining on the BBC Scotland website on 29 January 2024:
CalMac cuts passenger numbers over safety failure
They open with:
Ferry operator CalMac has been forced to cut passengers numbers on its MV Isle of Mull vessel to just 45 after it failed a safety check.
Problems were identified with the ship’s evacuation system during its annual overhaul.
CalMac has confirmed passenger numbers must be temporarily limited to reflect the spaces available on its lifeboats.
BBC Scotland open with the above before going on to milk the story for a further 7 paragraphs before this:
CalMac says passenger bookings on the Lochboisdale route very rarely exceed 45 passengers per sailing at this time of year. At the time the restrictions were brought in, there were no bookings exceeding the 45 passengers per sailing limit.
So, the headline story is ‘Nothing to report here?
So 45 or less booked on the MV Isle of Mull over the winter months, even at New Year? How many can she take?
900!
FFS and she sails with 45 or less? Who’s paying for that? You and me. Are the islanders grateful? You bet they’re not.
Joe, above, is from Somerset and may be the Mull person I heard on Radio Scotland, a few years back, saying CalMac is the worst ferry service in the world.
Is the MV Isle of Mull the only largely empty ferry sailing steadily through the winter?
I have previously checked the Arran service for this very thing:
In a year, CalMac makes around 4 000 sailings (not inc cancellations) between Ardrossan and Brodick.1
In 2022, they carried 692 518 passengers and 183 092 cars.2
So on average, each sailing took around 173 passengers and 45 cars.
The MV Caledonian Isles, operating the route in 2022, takes up to 1 000 passengers and 110 cars.3
So, accepting the ferry may well be full in high summer even with increased sailings, this suggests quite a lot of spare capacity in the system, massively subsidised for a population of only 5 000.
Sources:
- https://www.calmac.co.uk/article/2607/Route-Performance–CalMac-Ferries
- https://www.calmac.co.uk/article/9241/Carrying-Statistics-2022—text-version
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Caledonian_Isles
Are the Arran islanders grateful. Most probably are but enough, typically not born there, are ever ready to contact the media when the service fails to meet their southern sense of entitlement.
Is CalMac worst in the world? What do you think? Over the last few years, I’ve looked at them all.
Here’s a better candidate:
Washington State Ferries in the USA have just announced new prices for the popular 15 miles, 1 hour crossing of the sheltered Puget Sound, between Bremerton and Seattle – $54.35 or £43.30. https://mynorthwest.com/3959021/travel-alert-washington-ferry-prices-go-up-amid-waves-riders/
The popular 14.3 miles, 1 hour 20 minutes crossing of the, at times very stormy, Firth of Clyde, from Brodick, Arran to Ardrossan, is £30.20.
How is this possible?
In 2022/2023, the SNP Government ferry subsidy to keep prices down to affordable levels for hopefully grateful islanders, native or settler, was £173 MILLION! https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24276739.calmac-gets-63-real-terms-public-subsidy-rise-despite-drop/#:~:text=Then%20the%20grant%20to%20CalMac,space%20of%20just%20one%20year.
There are many mainland villages in Scotland with far longer journey times from larger towns or city centres without comparable help. The ferry users group chairs should write to the Herald and BBC Scotland, tell them to zip it for fear of attracting public scrutiny of their subsidies, then zip it themselves. I know it’s hard if you’ve just retired from being Chief Executive of Arsechester Dairies, to a Scottish island, to stop talking, but do try.
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Do you control the people who can comment on your site. I think it’s time to prevent anyone commenting as “Anonymous “ . Genuine commenters would surely not object to signing in before they can comment and for those commenters who wish to remain anonymous, surely creating a nom de plume is the answer?
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I may be wrong, but believe this to be an artefact from when John first set up the site and the WordPress settings used – Bluntly he’s been trying to run this on his own for an exceedingly long time and we’re all grateful for it.
If any with WordPress experience are observing who are in the Ayr vicinity and can volunteer an hour with perhaps a cuppa as reward, I’m sure John will be eternally grateful.
I’ve only posted once (I think) as “anonymous” because of a glitch which logged me out of WordPress, follow up comments were attributed once I realised and logged back in..
Us oldies need all the help we can get…. I’ve got Simona coming round in an hour, apparently bringing her chamois… I suspect I’m going to get leathered…
🤣
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I wouldn’t have a chamois or a gazebo for that matter. If you’re away for a few days, who is going to feed them?
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Chamois Davis Junior had a gazebo….
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Commenting anonymously is often involuntary as when someone has problems logging in WordPress will post their comment as ” anonymous “.
So long as someone isn’t being offensive or abusive , I don’t see a problem with this.
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That’s ok until you get the comments from the person referred to who took the advantage of anonymity to make abusive and very personal attacks in the knowledge that he or she cannot be called out.
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I can delete offensive posts but that’s I think. I could WordPress staff to ban folk.
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IIRC an IP address can be banned – Useful to get rid of pests who keep changing user names…
I don’t think any of us find mind folks voicing genuine concerns or citing inconveniences arising as result of the rerouting, but there has to be a bit of perspective brought to bear on the options available to SG, when they went for Troon – Whenever works finally start on Ardrossan, both vessels would have to run from somewhere to keep the Brodick run going anyway, and Troon has the advantage of not requiring ‘handbrake turns’ when it gets a tad rough.
Those I object to we’ve seen infesting comment sections everywhere, propagandists promoting such as “Maybe if we had a responsible Government, operating with a fixed budget, that ensured that the ferries were fit for purpose instead of being “world leading”. we would have a reliable ferry service” – That’s political propaganda from those with no interest in solving anything.
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I can understand ( to a certain extent ) the moans of actual ‘Islanders ‘ when complaining ( as we all do at times ) about poor service . However i have very little sympathy for those from elsewhere who have CHOSEN to live on an island .
Did they expect the same connectivity as living on the mainland when they made this decision ?
Did they investigate the potential difficulties living on an island in a country with the extremely changeable weather than Scotland is subject to ?
Do they think that the Scottish Government should promote THEIR concerns above all the other pressing demands on their limited budget in this age of ( now ) Labour Austerity ?
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Exactly
Retired CEO of Arschester Dairies in Husband’s Bosworth buys the big house on Eriskay.
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Perhaps I’m being overly sensitive here John, but ” Are the Arran islanders grateful. Most probably are but enough, typically not born there, are ever ready to contact the media when the service fails to meet their southern sense of entitlement ” strays into uncomfortable territory – Many have made Scotland their home because it revitalises and nurtures them and they love it, any who display a ” southern sense of entitlement ” are very quickly corrected – eg Farage, Edinburgh…
Much more telling of the man from Somerset is business – This was the first thing which stuck out like a sore thumb – Almost all the ‘independent commentary’ as “ferry-magedon” developed in the media spotlight, featured business people, beginning with Mr James McColl.
I suspect the distinction we have to make is between the agitators and manipulators and the actual islanders – It is the latter who matter, not the nutcase bitching on this site that the ferry was late “15 minutes all day” as observed from his plush gaff overlooking the harbour – Was he seriously expecting the ferry to make up for a screwup somewhere else by taking the non-existent bypass to make up time ?
The islanders have rolled with the punches of shipping delays for more than 2 centuries, and I daresay they have been delighted by how far we have progressed, except for the moron overlooking Brodick…
But the clue for the all the bullshit lies with a three letter word, SNP…
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I share your state of irritation.
John
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It only takes a mo to proof-read before hitting the send button.
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No it doesn’t, as you’ve eloquently demonstrated…
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let’s nor forget the Road Equivalent Tariff….a report from 2020 by Stantec for TransportScotland……..https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/49397/evaluation-of-road-equivalent-tariff-on-the-clyde-and-hebridean-network.pdf
“The visitor spend data collected through the onboard survey suggest that visitors are spending fairly substantial sums of money on the islands, ranging from £114 for the average daytripper party to £387 of non-accommodation spend for parties staying more than one night.
The benefits ‘2015 RET’ residents have derived from making additional trips are closely related to their journey purpose (predominantly visiting friends & relatives more often, shopping and leisure opportunities). Around a quarter of respondents make the same number of trips as prior to RET but now take a car, which has allowed them to access different destinations and widen the range of activities in which they engage whilst on the mainland.
RET has also facilitated improved access to employment, training and business opportunities for a small number of island residents, generating economic benefits for the communities concerned, which are in addition to the social benefits outlined above. The policy has also facilitated health-related travel, a key benefit of RET.
It is common in many smaller islands for residents to maintain an old on-island car (or no island car) and keep their primary car on the mainland. This reduces the need to pay a ferry car fare when making a journey. The number of island cars parked on the mainland should have reduced, but no significant impact on car ownership levels was identified, which suggests that residents of the smaller island communities are taking advantage of lower fares to take their car back to the island more often.
Due to the switch from foot passenger to car travel, a significant proportion of residents surveyed now spend more on fares than they did prior to the introduction of RET. This suggests that the perceived benefits of taking a car onboard the ferry outweigh the marginal fares costs, and that the pre-RET fares were frustrating journeys which people were wanting to make.
RET has facilitated growth in the crucial ‘visiting friends & relatives’ market, whilst also making it easier for island residents to access mainland goods and services.
Where residents have saved money as a result of RET (i.e. they are not paying additional fares through now taking a car onboard), the evidence from the resident survey suggests that the money saved on ferry fares has been recycled back into both the island and mainland economies (and is in effect a transfer from government). Some 37% noted that spending has increased in general, albeit a larger proportion of this has been spent on the mainland than on the island. From the perspective of resident spending, RET has generated a net additional economic benefit for the islands concerned.”
And then we have The North Ayrshire Profile Arran from September 2017…..https://northayrshire.community/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Locality-Profile_Arran_Final_Version_Sept2017.pdf
”Key Findings
Arran’s unique natural beauty and accessibility continue to make it one of the most popular tourism destinations on the west coast of Scotland, with a distinctive island heritage dating as far back as 6th Century Scotland. As well as higher life expectancy, low unemployment and much lower rates of crime, the locality also offers good schools, active community groups, local festivals, Visitor Centres, a local distillery, and award winning produce. This quality of life was reflected in recent community workshops where residents selected ‘Support for Young People’ as the top priority above ‘Community Safety’ which was most popular in the mainland localities.
The resident population of approximately 4,500 has an older age profile, with just under a third aged 65 years and over, the highest proportion of all localities. The proportion of residents aged under 18yrs is the lowest of all localities at less than 15%, and for every ten workers there are over eight residents not economically active. Population projections indicate a significant fall in the working age population (18-64yrs) by almost half by the year 2026.
Residents aged 65yrs and over will make up one half of the island’s population by 2026.
A recent survey indicated a majority of Arran residents saying that their health was “Good” or
“Very Good”, while both males and females can expect to live to over 80 and 83 years respectively – amongst the highest averages in North Ayrshire. SIMD health rankings have remained stable since 2012, while smoking rates at 12% are lower than the North Ayrshire rate of 15%.
Since 2004, Arran’s datazones have fallen well outside of the top 15% most multiply deprived of all five Scottish Indices of Multiple Deprivation. While median household incomes do not reach the higher bandings within the North Coast locality, at over £31K they remain well above the North Ayrshire median of approximately £25K. The ACORN geodemographic dataset does identify rural poverty in postcodes where households are ‘financially stretched’. Nonetheless, of the 183 Arran postcodes, almost a third are categorised as ‘Affluent Achievers’ (56), 41% are categorised as ‘Comfortable Communities’ (76), and no postcodes fall in the lowest category of ‘Urban Disadvantage’.
This strong economic advantage is further reflected in Arran’s adult and youth unemployment rates, which have been consistently the lowest across all North Ayrshire neighbourhoods. The March 2017 unemployment rate for North Ayrshire was 4.1% for all adults compared with 1.0% for Arran, while the youth unemployment rate was 1.3% compared with 5.5% for North Ayrshire.
Property prices on Arran are more than double the North Ayrshire median price of £90K. keeping housing affordability as an ongoing issue in Arran. With the 2016 median house price of £195K more than six times the local median household income, access to affordable housing for young families and the working households presents a challenge.”
So…..better health longer life but making kids move away because they can’t afford to buy houses because of non islanders who can afford it moving in and probably doing much of their shopping on the mainland because of SNP Scottish Government subsidising their travel but complaining there are not enough ferries to the destination they want as they are ‘entitled’ incomers who know or should know the “risks” involved when deciding to retire to an island, unfortunately the older we get the more we need medical care from our, best performing NHS in their divided union!!!
JB
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