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Today, the Herald has the above, and:
A coalition of islands has lodged a formal objection over a Scottish Government ferry fiasco compensation fund which they have condemned as “unlawful, unjust and divisive”. Six Hebridean islands has come together to lodge a formal protest to the Scottish Government about the £4.4 million scheme that was intended to support islanders after years of CalMac ferry disruption.
Nowhere is there any detail on just who the members of this great coalition are but it’s spokesperson seems to be Joe Reade, Mull master baker from Somerset.
In July 2025, the protest leader was a Mull cafe owner, presumable a customer of the bakery.
stewartb demolished the claims then:
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' 
Perhaps this ”protest group” would prefer a private ferry operator to replace ”CalMac ferry disruption ” ?
Then there would be NO subsidy from the Scottish Government to keep fares at a level lower than any other routes in the UK , NO compensation scheme when the private operator fails to meet the standard set by CalMac , NO Government Minister to face the angry islanders when the for profit private operator raises fares to increase their profits , …..
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Not a ‘protest group’.
‘Action group’ and they sound extremely suspect with a spurious agenda, being mostly SNP bad, but the damage is done. I wonder who was behind that little BritNat tactic, hmm.
Indeed the EngGov have form in plonking public funds into private companies and bailing out big banks don’t they…when English Labour were in control of Holyrood for TEN years, they plunged Scotland into £BILLIONS of ‘debt’ with their PFI scheme, (scam), that scam should be investigated but it would take up precious time and money.
It resulted in councils across Scotland being beholden to private companies for decades sometimes for inadequate, unsafe and not fit for purpose new buildings, which the SNP had to put right and even extend the ERI hospital in Edinburgh, or rather a major hospital plonked pretty much outside of the city, because the capacity for the population was not adequate and the heating system did not work as it should have.
So yes, England’s gov and their jobsworths in Scotland have form in shafting Scotland and scamming Scotland out of £billions. To add insult to injury, pun intended, the ERI will not be owned by the people paying for it, far I know that’s still the case, the private company will continue to own it!
No thanks!!
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The journalist is Martin William, an award winning ” investigative ” journalist – who also has the accolade of having 10/10 his recent articles all being about the ferries. He coined the phrase ” ferry fiasco ” after the Arran Ferry Action Group got his ear. They were, note past tense, a very vociferous group who did not represent the majority of Arran nor were in any way democratically elected or served in any official capacity. They got much air time – often stating inaccurate information- but who cares it made media news. They ,together, led highly negative views towards Arran. This damaged Arran’s reputation locally and internationally ( eg on FB travel forums even folk from South Carolina ,never having visited Scotland warned about ferry travel and this still permeates those pages) They disbanded having gained nothing positive for Arran or any other islands but have left the negativity behind for us to deal with. So yes be careful what you wish for !
In terms of the grant ,we are also not eligible because we do not fit the criteria but are happy for those eligible to have the opportunity to apply for funding
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I wonder who started up and funded that dodgy sounding ‘action group’…what a disgrace having deliberately used a media platform to put Arran down and Scotland, and of course their agenda being SNP bad.
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Indeed, the Martin Williams pretence of honest journalism fell apart within seconds of reading, https://archive.ph/vUrwc
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