News / Ferry fares leave family in poverty
LAST week councillors in Shetland accepted it would take another year to bring in lower ferry fares for north isles residents, who lost their free transport in April last year. The consequences for some islanders have been acute, particularly one couple who Neil Riddell spoke to.
“WE ARE in a position that we never believed possible,” said Fetlar resident Marie Hallam.
“My husband is working six days a week yet we cannot afford anything. We have no quality of life. We would be better off on the dole.”
In the council chamber at Lerwick Town Hall last week, North Isles councillors spoke of constituents “burning our lug” about the unfairness of reintroducing fares on the Bluemull Sound route between Yell, Unst and Fetlar.
Few can have been affected as severely as Hallam and her husband Nils Smith, who commutes to a salmon job in the north of Unst six days a week and has shelled out more than £2,200 on fares since they were reinstated on 1 April last year.
Hallam turned down a temporary part time contract last year because “for a few hours’ work, it’s not worth doing the travelling”.
The couple did not have much disposable income to begin with, but now they are saddled with nearly £2,000 of debt and have fallen into arrears on their council house rent.
Such cases highlight why councillors are so frustrated that an overhaul of fare structures will not now be agreed and implemented until April 2015.
“We can’t do it for another year,” Hallam said from England where she is visiting family.
“I’ll have to leave Fetlar. I’ve been there 20 years, but my partner is a Shetlander born and bred, and I just think it’s appalling that he can be put out of a job in his native islands.”
She runs a small ice cream business, but fears she will be unable to afford the initial outlay on ingredients and packaging to continue with the enterprise this summer.
Before the fares were brought back, Smith was already forking out £50 a week on fuel for a 40 mile round trip – five miles from their house in Fetlar to the ferry, then a further 15 miles from the Belmont terminal to his workplace.
Taking public transport or car sharing is not an option, so with a multi-journey ferry ticket costing £48.48 a week, it means around a third of his income goes on travelling to and from work.
Hallam is particularly frustrated as the community was promised during consultation meetings that commuters would only face full fares for an interim period until more sophisticated ticket machines were brought in.
“Basically they were saying ‘bear with us for a couple of months’, then they’d be able to have different rates for residents, commuters, whatever else.”
Tourists visiting the North Isles readily told her they could hardly believe that, having paid for the crossing from Toft to Yell, the Bluemull Sound route was free of charge.
Fares only apply to those not travelling from the Shetland mainland – a loophole which isles residents understandably see as perverse.
“When I was working in Unst at the bistro I was in close contact with holidaymakers. They were all amazed that they didn’t have to pay on this ferry,” Hallam said.
Councillors have told her that every decision must either save money or be “cost neutral”.
She contends that asking tourists to pay would allow the SIC to offer a discount rate for regular commuters without losing income.
“I’m not meaning that we can rip off the visitors. The point is visitors to Shetland know it’s not a cheap holiday and they’re willing to pay.”
Convener Malcolm Bell is one of several councillors Hallam has approached to discuss her predicament.
He said it was clear the reintroduction of fares had “affected a relatively small number of people in a disproportionately severe way”.
Bell said he shared North Isles councillors’ disappointment that a new fare structure had “taken longer than envisaged”.
While no discounted fares for commuters will be offered in 2014/15, he added: “As councillors we will work with individuals who are in genuine hardship to try and find solutions.”
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