Na h-Eileanan an Iar SNP MSP, Alasdair Allan, has today welcomed confirmation from Calmac that their intention is for the MV Hebrides to only leave the Uig triangle for the 2-3 weeks of her own dry docking next winter.
This follows several successive winters in which the MSP has taken up concerns with Calmac about how the route has been serviced while the MV Hebrides has been redeployed for much longer periods.
Alasdair Allan commented:
“While this represents an early point in discussions around vessel redeployment, it is greatly encouraging to see Calmac moving towards accepting that the arrangements for the past few winters have been inadequate.
“There are not many places in the world where fireworks are set off to welcome the return of a regular transport vessel from redeployment. I don’t think there can be any doubt about the North Uist community’s strength of feeling on this issue and the disruption her absence caused to everyone’s day to day lives. People in every community across the Western Isles deserve a regular and reliable ferry service to the mainland and I hope people in North Uist can look forward to that this winter.
“As I have said before the best thing we can do in the long term to improve reliability is to strengthen our ferry fleet. The Scottish Government has demonstrated its commitment in this regard with the construction of the new £97 million dual-fuel ferries currently underway at Ferguson’s shipyard in Port Glasgow, with one designed specifically for the Uig Triangle.”
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