News / Too much information for ferry cuts deadline
PLANS to cut back Shetland Islands Council’s inter island ferry service to save almost £3 million over the next two years are likely to be delayed beyond the December deadline.
Four public meetings in Fair Isle, Whalsay, Unst and Yell have seen huge local turnouts as residents argue the vital importance of their lifeline transport links to the Shetland mainland.
Meetings are still to be held on Bressay, Fetlar, Papa Stour and Skerries.
Council chiefs have promised that no decisions will be made before two socio-economic studies, which only began this week, have been completed.
With more data pouring in from public meetings and feedback forms, combined with existing studies on island transport, council chiefs fear they will not be ready for a decision to be made on 17 December.
At four packed and well-mannered meetings, islanders stressed that current proposals such as removing one ferry from Bluemull and Yell Sound would undermine the economy of individual islands and Shetland as a whole.
The north isles meetings made it clear that any significant reduction in service would threaten businesses and jobs, leading to depopulation.
On Whalsay residents complain that even the existing service is unable to cope with current demand.
Ex-teacher John Dally said: “There are already people who have decided to move off the island because of the current ferry timetable.
“It would be more than a shame to see alterations made without doing everything possible to make sure the community can continue. We don’t want to go the way of St Kilda.”
On Unst people fear the burgeoning tourist industry will be choked off and aquaculture firms will abandon the isle if the service is cut too much.
Unst community council chairman Lowrie Robertson told BBC Radio Shetland: “Leaving one ferry on the Bluemull Sound would be a complete disaster. It will absolutely decimate our tourism industry, which has been booming for the last few summers.”
On Yell the community council presented a detailed set of alternatives to save money without damaging the busy export route for white fish, mussels and salmon from both Yell and Unst.
Community council chairman Dan Thompson said: “One ferry is completely inadequate. We propose two ferries during the week, one at the weekend and not having a full crew on at night.
“We know the council is walking a financial tightrope because of all the spending that’s been done in the past, but if they threaten the economy you can forget everything else.”
On Fair Isle the 70 islanders’ greatest concern has been the loss of their fortnightly sailing to Lerwick, for which they have come up with an alternative proposal to charge tourists a higher rate – a suggestion now being proposed in the north isles too.
SIC environment and transport chairman Allan Wishart, who attended three of the four meetings, said he appreciated the huge level of concern.
He welcomed the feedback, which suggested people were ready to sacrifice social ferry runs in favour of a service that maintained economic trade and allowed people to commute to and from work.
He played down suggestions that insufficient effort was going into gaining a full understanding of the full impact of reducing the ferry budget from £13 million to £10 million a year.
He said he believed the two socio-economic surveys into the effect on individual islands and Shetland’s wider economy would prove adequate, despite criticism that too few businesses were being contacted and the surveys only began this week.
“We have already got a lot of information from the meetings, I have asked people to feedback detailed examples of how the options will affect them and we have a lot of information from previous studies.
“There is perhaps going to be a problem with the amount of data being picked up in compiling a report in time for the December meeting.
“I want to make absolutely sure that all the information has been gathered and is presented so that councillors can make up their minds without calling for more reports and more information.”
North Isles councillor Gary Cleaver said islanders were heartened by the promise that decisions would not be made until all the information had been studied, but complained that such a unified piece of work had not been completed earlier.
“Myself and other councillors are really uncomfortable about the fact that we are trying to do all this at break neck speed because we really don’t know the consequences of our actions.
“The council has its own remit to reduce its internal spending, but if we cut the ferries much more it’s going to be an absolute disaster for the private sector and the general economy.
“At a very conservative estimate we are looking at between 40 and 50 million pounds a year going into the economy of Shetland from the north isles, and if you set that against the cost of the ferry service we are a net contributor.
“The trouble is that not much of that goes into the council’s coffers and the council is looking at this purely from a council perspective.”
Despite the amount of information already gathered, the council is still urging as many people as possible to complete feedback forms before the deadline on 23 November. The consultation can be accessed here.
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