By stewartb
The Mull cafe owner who won’t be able to bid for between £3k and £35k of taxpayer-funded business support grant, seems to be questioning the analysis of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) in setting eligibility criteria for the Scottish Government’s new £4.4m business support scheme, the Island Resilience Fund.
For more on the Island Resilience Fund (30 June 2025): – see https://www.gov.scot/news/island-resilience-fund-opens/
This explains: ‘‘A funding package developed to support island businesses affected by ferry disruption is now ready to accept applications. … Eligible sectors include those that rely on tourism and those that are engaged in the manufacture or movement of perishable goods, such as seafood.’
‘Highlands and Islands Enterprise carried out detailed analysis of information and statistics provided by Transport Scotland and CalMac relating to ferry disruption.
‘The islands of South Uist, Colonsay, North Uist, Eriskay, Benbecula, Berneray, Grimsay and Arran were chosen as eligible for the Islands Business Resilience Fund as they each had more than 15% ferry disruption over the last three seasons. The average cancellations of ferry services across the Calmac network is during that time has been (sic) around 7%.’
Lots of islands are not included in this scheme. Does the cafe owner dispute HIE’s analysis and ranking? Has the cafe owner run the numbers? Has the Scotsman?
I understand that the island of Mull has a population of c. 3,000 and that over the past decade or so this number has been stable. I understand that Mull is served by three ‘lifeline’ Calmac ferry services: to Oban, Lochaline and Kilchoan.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
SOunds to me like the cafe owner, because Scotland is a colony, thinks that the colony should keep on giving.
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The Officers Mess brigade (or retired Brigadiers), think the poor mainlander should subsidise the wealthy interloupers in their island fastnesses, big hooses or cafes.
gavinochiltree
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The Scotsman (is there an Anglosman rag in England?) is a propaganda rag posing as a Scottish newspaper, they will never portray the SNP in a positive light.
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Not so sure about there being an Anglosman paper, but if there is, it might well outsell the Scotsman that is now down to about 6,700 copies per day.
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As commented on the earlier post “PS – Out of curiosity, I looked at the Scotsman’s ‘Ena Saracevic’ version again and spotted what had been highlighted on this blog before about the emergency evacuation slides issue for the Isle of Mull with “The ship had its passenger capacity reduced to just 45, with the vessel redeployed to the quieter Oban to Lochboisdale service”, as so stated apparently by the ‘ The Mull and Iona Ferry Committee ‘, a very recent ‘innovation’ which stretched across Scotland’s islands with incredible speed over the last 3 years all of which have business connections – The chair of the Mull business network is the same activist who has featured previously, Joe Reade, purportedly ‘Representing the users of our lifeline ferry services’ on this particular ‘last straw’”
Neither his ‘biscuit magnate’ bakery nor his ‘Isle of Mull cheese’, nor his buying a few acres on holiday in the 1980s, nor his Brexit idiocy, nor his MP being electable beyond his native Somerset have anything to do with it….. Right…. Aye…
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