An audacious move to bring the ferry ports at both Dunoon and Gourock into community ownership was launched in Gourock this evening (Monday).
A Cowal community group proposes that the communities of Dunoon and Gourock take control of the berths, then sub-lease them to a ferry operator – and not necessarily CalMac. The move is designed to encourage a service with increased reliability, and relatively high berthing fees have been seen as a barrier to commercial operators becoming involved.
The group said: “The Community Empowerment Act of 2015 allows communities to take over publicly-owned property by means of an asset transfer if they can demonstrate that the community can make better use of them.
“In this case, if the community did control the berths and brought in an external operator, there could be considerable benefit. Not just to the people of Cowal, but also to Gourock residents who face the fairly considerable volume of traffic currently travelling through the town centre to get to Western Ferries.”
Currently, the Dunoon berth is owned by Argyll and Bute Council, which is listed as a public body.
However, the port at Gourock is owned by Cmal, a subsidiary of the Scottish Government – but not listed as a public body.
The group said: “Our argument is that, given Cmal is wholly owned by Transport Scotland, it should be considered as a public body under the terms of the act. To achieve this in practice, though, it would be necessary to convince the government to include Cmal on the list.
The group was represented at Gourock Community Council by Alan Stewart and Michael Breslin.
After presenting their case the pair was subject to a question and answer session.
In this session, Alan said: “If we were getting the level of service we deserve, with ferries that were efficient and don’t go off at the slightest breeze then we wouldn’t be standing here.”
Michael added: We’ve been promised boats for 13 years.
“I think at the moment the signs are ominous, that there will not be any new boats.”
In response, Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Inverclyde, Stuart McMillan, suggested that it would be ‘wise’ for the group to contact Cmal – even just for consultancy.
The group noted the MSP’s suggestion and mentioned that they are waiting until Cmal is recorded as a public body under the aforementioned act.
Some concerned members of the Gourock committee offered up their advice, querying the possibility of a permanent shuttle bus between the Western Ferries and CalMac terminals – particularly if CalMac were to reduce their service to one ferry an hour – but the group said that, when the ferries are fit and firing, it is possible to get from Dunoon to Glasgow Central on public transport in one hour and 13 minutes – a time greatly lengthened by a shuttle service which would also discourage many Cowal and Argyllshire residents.
The other suggestion offered up by the community council was the proposed ferry ‘triangle’ of Gourock, Kilcreggan and Dunoon, which the Cowal group was very dismissive of – citing journey times and regularity as its two main drawbacks.
However, the meeting was very positive, with many seeming to back the plans, but the community council members reiterated that they will need data and statistics to back up the proposal before they pledge their support for the initiative – a matter that may be resolved by the time of their next meeting in a month’s time.
