Is there a future for Calmac on Islay
Saturday, June 16 2007
The following story, written by Carl Reavey from the Ileach, explains very clearly the problems that customers have with the present ferry services and the way Calmac deals with the demands from their users. Although Calmac offers a very safe and reliable ferry service to Islay, this doesn't mean that it's a tailor made solution satisfactory for all parties involved. Increasing demand for capacity due to the fast growing whisky production and the increase in tourism has to be delt with by Calmac. Or is it back to the times of Para Handy and the Vital Spark? (picture right). In the past years Calmac was accused several times of running an inadequate ferry service because they weren't capable of meeting the demand from their customers.....
Gordon Ross, the Managing Director of Western Ferries was on Islay recently to address a Church of Scotland lunch club meeting at the Lochside Hotel. He used the opportunity to draw his audience’s attention once again to what his company continues to portray as a choke on the economic development of Islay - the stranglehold he claims that Caledonian MacBrayne holds over ferry services to the island.
The privately owned Western Ferries started out in life operating to Islay in the late 1960’s. A group of businessmen, including the present Chairman Alistair Ross (father of Gordon who was manager of Bowmore Distillery at the time) saw a commercial opportunity to transport freight for the whisky industry in a more efficient manner. It seems extraordinary now, but back then much of the whisky freight was still being transported by puffer - the rather lovely coal fired flat-bottomed steam ships that were immortalised by Para Handy and his Vital Spark. West Coast ferry company MacBraynes, which had a long established hegemony over the islands, was still loading cars onto their steamers using nets and a crane. Whisky production on Islay was increasing however and the world was moving on, so Mr Ross and his colleagues put together a service which essentially transformed ferry transport, and therefore life itself, on the west coast of Scotland using what was then a radical new concept - the ro-ro ferry. Ross claims that Western were operating four ferries a day every day to the island in 1968 - with a journey time of one hour fifty minutes - a better service than we currently enjoy almost forty years later.
What happened next depends on whom you talk to. Western Ferries claim that they were essentially forced off the route by what Ross describes as, “some very questionable competitive tactics” by the state owned Caledonian MacBrayne who were given public money to compete. He argues that it was this public money that allowed CalMac to introduce a new ro-ro ferry, the MV Pioneer (picture right), onto the Islay route in 1975. Western Ferries claimed that CalMac essentially lured the freight traffic away by “presenting the hauliers with an offer they could not refuse” thus undercutting the private operator on price using their colossal public subsidies. There was a long and acrimonious battle - with Western Ferries famously offering to carry all cars and foot passengers on the Islay route for free if the Government would provide them with the CalMac subsidy.
A report from the Monopolies and Mergers Commission said, “the least cost effective of the competitors on the route survived - to the detriment of public funds” because, inevitably, the Government refused to support the private operator against its own CalMac, and Western were forced to pull out of Islay. They then set up on the Clyde where they now run a profitable service across the river and constantly insert thorns into the Executive’s side by continuing to argue that it is possible to operate a commercial lifeline service without subsidy. Western now accuses CalMac of similar anti-competitive practices on the Gourock-Dunoon route, allegations which are currently the subject of an Audit Scotland investigation. The brutal historical truth is however that to date the Western protests have always been ignored. The UK Parliament, the Scottish Office, and now the Scottish Executive have always been prepared to support Caledonian MacBrayne with unlimited funds, no matter what. Scandal after scandal has failed to rock the CalMac boat; Western Ferries to Islay, Northlink, Pentland Ferries, Taygran Shipping, Gourock Dunoon, the EC, the unbelievable treatment of V-Ships, the stupendous costs of the tender process, any one of these incidents could have wrecked a normal company but Caledonian MacBrayne sails blithely on through it all - annually leaving almost £100 million in subsidies in her mighty wake. The romantic aura surrounding the company combining with the phenomenal safety record delivered by her crews ultimately always deflects any potential torpedoes.
Despite this, Ross continues to promote his argument that the commercial opportunities available to private companies are hamstrung by CalMac’s ownership of piers and harbours, by its limitless access to subsidy and because the ownership of CalMac is in the hands of those who make the rules. Why then, does Ross and his company continue to hammer at the door of this most closed, some would say secretive, organisation? Perhaps he believes the old saying that history has a habit of repeating itself - because the Islay whisky industry is on the march again and production is now forging ahead to previously undreamed of levels. It is no secret that CalMac have struggled to cope - and the demands on capacity are forecast to grow even greater this winter. The colossal multinationals that own the Islay whisky distilleries are now behemoths. Powerful beyond belief, and certainly not in thrall to the Scottish Executive, there is no way they will allow their plans for Islay whisky production to be constrained by ferry capacity. So something is going to occur, because everybody (even CalMac) now agrees that ferry capacity to Islay during the winter months is inadequate. CalMac will have to move quickly, but there have suddenly been signs that they are capable of doing that, signs that have (coincidentally?) moved in concert with the appointment of Bute-based Peter Timms as chairman. Professor Timms has a record of putting business before bureaucracy.
There has been a lot of good ferry news coming Islay’s way recently; extra sailings, abolition of the shoulder months, a replacement ferry. Even more is needed soon. Ross is well aware that if CalMac respond positively, then he has little chance. The question is, what would happen if CalMac fail to deliver? One thing we can be absolutely certain of - the whisky behemoths will not allow their production levels to be determined by the capacity of a ferry company to ship their products - even if that ferry company is state-owned.
This story was published with kind permission from The Ileach - Community Newspaper of the year.
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