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Where is the justifiable need for the Gourock-Dunoon passenger ferry service?

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Highlands and Islands MSP, Jamie McGrigor has been asking awkward questions on the current state of play with the upcoming tender for the Gourock-Dunoon passenger ferry service.

There have now been three years of intensive engagement with local ‘stakeholders’ – aka the Dunoon-Gourock Ferry Action Group.

This group smartly knew an opportunity when they saw it – the run up to the independence vote last year – and conducted a noisily demanding campaign to have a second vehicle and passenger service returned to the town centres Gourock-Dunoon route.

Passenger carrying figures demonstrated that the heavy lifting on the route was being carried by the private sector Western Ferries four-boat shuttle service on the shorter, faster and more economic passage across the Clyde between the outskirts of both tons. This was why the town-centres route had become a passenger-only service.

That itself was already a concession since passenger carrying statistics show that this two-boat service is fully surplus to need.

However, this was and remains politically uncomfortable for the Scottish Government and was particularly so in the period where its overriding priority was the protection of the independence referendum vote.

In this three year period of Government engagement, the Dunoon-Gourock Ferry Action Group has been:

  • given a state-commissioned feasibiilty study by MVA consultants which demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no  business case whatsoever for the creation of a second vehicle and passenger ferry service between Gourock and Dunoon;
  • given membership of a high powered Steering Group for the future of the service;
  • given unprecedented access to potential operators in pre-tendering procedures – access which, despite pledges to the contrary – is NOT now to be offered to other ferry groups across the west coast and islands;
  • permitted to veto issue-critical factual material from inclusion in the MVA consultants’ report;
  • given the MV Coruisk for 3 months of supplementary winter service over 2013-14 at a total cost at Argyll Ferries of around £750k;
  • given the MV Coruisk for a second year of supplementary winter service over 2014-15, although the results of her performance over 2013-14 showed that she regularly could not sail in the conditions for which she had been deployed; that. on over 50% of her passages, she had been unable to sail to schedule, seeing commuter passengers miss the vital rail link to Glasgow from the Gourock rail head; and that the number of passengers she carried, per sailing and in total, was modest to the point of embarrassment.

The response to Jamie McGrigor’s questions on the position now achieved shows that, despite all of these concessions and all of the wildly expensive and operationally unnecessary additional provisions given – at substantial opportunity cost to the public purse – no decision appears to have been reached.

And this is government?

Parliamentary question and answer

On 2nd February 2015 Jamie McGrigor lodged the following written parliamentary question:

‘To ask the Scottish Government what decisions it has made regarding the need for new ferries for the public service obligation Gourock-Dunoon ferry service to begin in summer 2017; whether any new tonnage will be passenger only, and whether there is a need for one or two new vessels?’

On 5th March, new Transport Minister, Derek Mackay, gave his written response to this question, saying:

‘In line with European procurement law all publicly subsidised ferry routes need to go through regular, fair and open tendering competitions to provide ferry services. It is anticipated a contract notice will be published in 2015, seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified operators to run the service from 2017. We are continuing to work with stakeholders, including the local communities, to confirm the number and type of vessels to be procured for the route.’

This is effectively a non-answer.

The contract held by the current operator, Argyll Ferries, requires to be retendered to take effect from 2017 so there is nothing here that was not already known and necessary.

What is, however, a bit of a confidence-shaker, is that all the Minister could say in response to the substance of Jamie McGrigor’s question, is that: ‘We are continuing to work with stakeholders, including the local communities, to confirm the number and type of vessels to be procured for the route.’

The narrative of the latest carrying statistics

With low demand for the passenger service – and the latest carrying statistics showing a continuing fall in numbers, the Argyll Ferries service is visibly unnecessary.

In its second year of operation, 2012-13, it lost 16.6% of its passengers as compared to its first year’s carryings – 341,000 against 409,200 in 2011-12.

This sharp fall has to be set against a persistent and fictionalised scaremongering campaign undertaken by Ferry Action Group supporters, with fictitious stories of lifejackets being issued to crying and terrified passengers; and with the vessels dubbed ‘the bathtub boats’ and repeatedly declared to be unreliable and unsafe.

As passengers and performance together bedded in and sailing statistics became available, these stories were seen to be the concoctions they were. One famous effort declared his source as  being ‘a woman on the McGills Bus’.

However, although the cliff-fall in passenger numbers stabilised with the onset of common sense, passenger carrying numbers still fell by a further 12.3% in the company’s third year of operation, 2013-14: from 341,300 to 299,200.

Against this pattern, Western Ferries has shown a steady increase in both its passenger and vehicle carryings, interrupted by one bumper year in 2012-13, with figures either side of that being lower – but with the 2013-14 figures modestly higher than the 2011-12 figures.

In 2013-14, Western carried 1,342,700 passengers as opposed to 299,200 carried on the Argyll Ferries’ town centres passenger service – almost 4.5 times as many. Western’s is the most reliable service anywhere on the Clyde and that, as well as its investments in its fleet and its shuttle service, will be underpinning the commercial success of its low cost service.

At present, when heavy weather means that the inevitably lighter Argyll Ferries’ passenger boats cannot sail, passengers are given a free bus ride to a free passage on the reliable Western Ferries route. Western has always been able to accept the additional carryings.

The cost of the transfers and alternative service carryings are additional to the cost to the taxpayer of the Argyll ferries contract.

The business case?

The west coast of Scotland’s ferry services are largely state owned. They are served by the fleet owned by CMAL [the state owned Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited]. This is an ageing fleet, commissioned over a long period and to answer needs and demand that are different from those of today.

They are also progressively going out of service for periods of time with age-related technical problems.

To date the Scottish Government’s policy for vessel replacement has been:

  • in response to new and increased demand the current vessels cannot meet;
  • to seek private sector funding for their commissioning 0- and therefore private sector owners of the new tonnage.

New demand is strongly seasonal, not spread across the year – and has been driven by the Scottish Government’s introduction of the substantial fare subsidy under the Road Equivalent Tariff [RET] scheme.

In the case of the Gourock-Dunoon passenger service, this is not a lifeline service so under EC regulations, subsidy cannot be paid for any vehicle service provision on the route – and, with a short passage and along road equivalent, ay application of RET to the passenger fares would make them more expensive.

There is weak and failing demand for this service.

There is therefore no pressure whatsoever from demand on the capability of the tonnage already deployed. Moreover, there is a successful private sector vehicle and passenger service on the route capable of absorbing the additional passenger carryings.

In the commercial world, there would be no decision to  be made.

The business case indicates a clear cessation of the passenger carrying service. This would bring no actual impediment to travellers – but would undoubtedly cause the Ferry Action Group to give voice – although they have been uncharacteristically quiet for some time.

Proper stewardship of scarce public funds would equally dictate this decision, particularly with Scotland shortly to move to a position where it will, by choice, manage taxation revenues to cover its own spending.

The Scottish Government has given no sign that it has yet grasped just what this will mean in the pressure from taxpayers where new levels of taxation are raising additional revenues which are manifestly not being responsibly used.

A decision made from political rather than service need – and in response to want not need – almost certainly will see the continuation of this unnecessary service; although the cost of new tonnage would cause serious concern.

If continuation is the decision taken by the Scottish Government, it would be advised to show some sense of fiscal responsibility in tendering for a one-boat service; and either of the current boats used by Argyll Ferries is demonstrably capable of delivering such a service.

The opportunity cost [what else might be achieved with the same funding] of the current state provision will undoubtedly come under public scrutiny in the all-but-independent Scotland that will shortly be earning and paying its own way.

Current over provision

The inescapable fact is that Dunoon is massively over-provided with ferry services and the weighty cost of the underused and unnecessary state-subsidised passenger service between the town centres ought responsibly to be reconsidered.

Below is the total picture of ferry services available to Dunoon, updated from April 2015 until further notice. The two timetables alongside each other see, on Mondays, for example,  Dunoon getting:

  • 3 services out before 07.00
  • 5 services every hour from, inclusively, 07.00 to 12.50
  • 4 services every hour from, inclusively, 13.00 to 16.50
  • 5 services every hour from, inclusively, 17.00 to 18.50
  • 4 services every hour from, inclusively, 19.00 t0 20.50
  • 2 services every hour from 21.00 to 22.10
  • 1 service at 23.10

For most of the day, if you lived in London, you could hardly catch a tube on a specific route more frequently than this – and that is in a metropolis.

Mondays-Thursdays – 144 sailings per day

  • 86 sailings [43 each way] from Western Ferries vehicle and passenger service, starting at 06.10 from Dunoon, with last return at 22.30.
  • 58 sailings [29 each way] from Argyll Ferries passenger only service, starting at 06.45 from Dunoon, with last return at 23.10.

Fridays – 156 sailings per day

  • 94 sailings [47 each way] from Western Ferries vehicle and passenger service, starting at 06.10 from Dunoon, with last return at 24.00.
  • 62 sailings – [31 each way] from Argyll Ferries passenger only service, starting at 06.45 from Dunoon, with last return at 01.25

Saturdays – 142 sailings per day

  • 80 sailings [40 each way] from Western Ferries vehicle and passenger service, starting at 07.10 from Dunoon, with last return at 24.00.
  • 62 sailings – [31 each way] from Argyll Ferries passenger only service, starting at 06.45 from Dunoon, with last return at 01.25

Sundays – 138 sailings per day

  • 80 sailings [40 each way] from Western Ferries vehicle and passenger service, starting at 07.10 from Dunoon, with last return at 24.00.
  • 58 sailings [29 each way] from Argyll Ferries passenger only service, starting at 06.45 from Dunoon, with last return at 23.10.

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