Kintyre ferry discussions 'positive'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-34650671

Version 0 of 1.

Campaigners who want a ferry link between Kintyre and Ayrshire to continue say a meeting with the transport secretary was "positive".

Calmac has run an experimental service linking Campbeltown and Ardrossan over the past three summers.

Campaigners said it had made a difference to Kintyre's economy and met Transport Secretary Derek Mackay to make their case.

A decision on the service's future is expected before Christmas.

The service - which was always envisaged as a pilot - provided three sailings in each direction each week.

It used a vessel primarily used to provide an enhanced service between Ardrossan and Brodick on Arran over the summer months.

The sailings provided an alternative to the four-hour drive between Campbeltown and Glasgow and was the first regular car ferry service between Kintyre and Ayrshire.

Until the 1930s, sea travel was the main way of reaching Kintyre from the Central Belt.

Transport Scotland hired consultants to carry out a full evaluation of the route.

The campaigners from Kintyre want the ferry to continue and want a decision quickly to ensure next summer's sailings can be properly publicised to potential visitors.

The government is expected to reach a decision on the service in the coming weeks.

Last summer 11,350 passengers used the service - a 15% rise on 2013 - along with 2,200 cars.

Campaigners have been reassured that disruption to this year's sailings as a result of technical issues, unusually bad weather and industrial action, will be taken into account when this year's passenger statistics are evaluated.

Consultants have been carrying out a detailed survey to help Transport Scotland evaluate the pilot.

They have been looking at things such as how often individual travellers use the service, whether they would have made the same journey using another form of transport if the ferry was not running and how much money they spent in Kintyre.

Because Kintyre is not an island, the ferry service is not a lifeline in the way most other CalMac services are. It simply provides an alternative - and some believe better - way of getting to the area.

As the ferry also covers the Ardrossan to Brodick route, any changes to the Campbeltown timetable would need to be agreed by all the stakeholders to make sure Arran did not lose out.

One local concern has been that there may be no service next summer - but that the service may start again in the future after the next contract to provide ferry services around the west coast comes into operation towards the end of next year.

One reason for the nervousness in Kintyre is the memory of a failed attempt to establish a car ferry service between Campbeltown and Ballycastle in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s. Its was run by a private company which received no subsidy.