Deal is sealed for transfer of Kilcreggan ferry

Kilcreggan's ferry service will at last be transferred to the oversight of Transport Scotland in two months' time, following years of campaigning by local residents.

But the public purse will pay out significantly more to support the service when the country's national transport agency takes on the oversight of the link with Gourock on April 1.

The final hurdle to the transfer of responsibility was cleared on Friday when the operations committee of the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) approved the terms of the transfer.

The committee was told that the current annual subsidy of £334,000 will rise to £387,500 – an increase of 16 per cent.

That money will continue to be paid out by SPT, but Transport Scotland will have all overall responsibility for the route, including contract management and procurement, customer relations, and all operational matters.

A report to Friday meeting stated: "As part of the agreement for transfer of the service, the Scottish Government has stipulated that SPT’s existing funding for the delivery of the service should transfer to Transport Scotland on an ongoing basis.

"The current annual cost of this service to SPT is £334,000 (with yearly inflation adjustments).

"Because of increasing contract costs, a revised funding arrangement has been negotiated with Transport Scotland. It is proposed that SPT will increase its annual funding contribution of this service to £387,500, with Transport Scotland being responsible for all costs over and above this.

"The amount of annual grant received from Transport Scotland will reflect these arrangements and this will continue to be the case throughout the period that the service is contracted and managed by Transport Scotland."

Alex Scott from SPT told the committee: "We have been engaged with Transport Scotland on the detail of the transfer, and have effectively now concluded that arrangement.

"It was always stipulated that the transfer would be done at no financial detriment to Transport Scotland.

"We have agreed that we will transfer our existing funding to them, but because of the increase in the contract costs, we will increase our contributions by approximately £50,000 a year."

Questioned by committee member Graham Johnston on whether the funding arrangement was a permanent one, Mr Scott said: "Yes, it is. As long as the service continues, we will continue to transfer the money."

Operation of the route was transferred to Clyde Marine Services (CMS) of Greenock in 2018 after the previous operator, Clydelink, was stripped of the contract amid mounting concern at its poor performance.

Friday's meeting also heard details of the service's performance for the three months from September 29 to December 21.

Patronage during the period was down overall by 2.7 per cent, but was up by 0.6 per cent for the year to date compared to the same nine months in 2018.

Reliability was 100 per cent for the four-week periods ending October 26 and November 24.

That figure dropped to 90 per cent for the period ending December 21, which saw 62 missed sailings, all because of bad weather.

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