January: Disrupted on 23 days; only four days without warnings
February: Disrupted on 22 days; only five days without warnings
March: So far disrupted on five out of ten days
Winch broken; both mezzanines broken
CalMac no longer replying to our letters
Posted by Chris AttkinsHeather Lodge · News Archive Published: Tuesday, 10th March 2020, 12:00am · Updated: Saturday, 25th July 2020, 5:55pm
It's hardly a promising start to the year. However, following intense lobbying, together with considerable media pressure, we remain hopeful that CMAL are finally going to reinstate Gourock as a Port of Refuge. It remains to be seen whether CalMac will honour their promise to make use of this port when Ardrossan is out of action.
To date, all our requests to serve on the Ardrossan Task Force have been rejected. Our local MSP has, until very recently, refused to engage with us. After repeated requests, Transport Scotland eventually released some documents relating to the proposed works, but critical information was redacted. We appealed to the Information Commissioner, who found in our favour, and now await full disclosure from this government department.
The CalMac Community Board failed to represent Arran altogether when presenting their evidence to the Government Inquiry into the new ferry fiasco. We have of course submitted our own evidence and our representatives attended the Inquiry, although they were not allowed to speak. We have made repeated representations to the Rural Economy & Connectivity Committee for Arran's plight to be properly considered and have today appealed again on behalf of the island.
Those in authority seem able to ignore such appeals so we are again mounting a media campaign in the hope of embarrassing them into action to address the shortcomings of our lifeline ferry service. We are mindful of the potential damage of negative publicity on Arran's economy, but with substantial losses to winter trade already incurred due to ferry problems, we remain determined to hold those responsible to account. At the end of the day, perhaps the politicians will care more about your votes than your ferry service.
To this end we have today requested that the parlous state of our ferry service be raised at First Minister's Questions this week. Unfortunately, our suggestion that an available catamaran be chartered to supplement the currently limping vessel has already been rejected by CalMac.
Share This Page
About Us
The current state of our lifeline ferry service shows it is not fit for purpose in terms of reliability, resilience and infrastructure. The Arran Ferry Action Group is a new and fully representative lobbying group, set up to represent Arran interests in demanding service improvements and accountability in future investment decisions.
Contact Us
Arran Ferry Action Group
Thistledo Shore Road Brodick Isle of Arran KA27 8AJ Scotland United Kingdom
The Arran Ferry Action Group General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy is the responsibility of the Data Protection Lead as appointed by theArran Ferry Action Group committee.
Personal information means any information that relates to an individual that may be used either directly or indirectly to identify them.
The Arran Ferry Action Group GDPR policy statement describing how Arran Ferry Action Groupprotects personal information is published on the Arran Ferry Action Group website.
There are two types of information that Arran Ferry Action Group may store about individuals that it is in contact with.
Arran Ferry Action Group
Stores general contact information if provided by individuals including: name, email address and telephone number
Stores additional personal information if provided by individuals including: address, email address, occupation
Storage of Contact and Personal Information
General contact information provided by individuals is used to communicate with them about Arran Ferry Action Group activities.
A person’s name, address, date of birth, gender, and email address may be collected by Arran Ferry Action Group to undertake Arran Ferry Action Group activities. These activities include sending newsletter updates, moderating forums etc.
This personal information may be stored either electronically or on paper.
Arran Ferry Action Group will only keep contact or personal information while the individual is a supporter of Arran Ferry Action Group or as long as necessary to provide services or support requested by the individual.
The only people that may have access to personal information are the committee members of Arran Ferry Action Group or individuals appointed by the Arran Ferry Action Group committee to support the Arran Ferry Action Group activities.
No personal information is passed on to any other individuals or organisations unless:
at the request of the individual
we are legally required to
to preserve the health and safety of any individual
Arran Ferry Action Group makes use of cloud storage services which includes an email service.
If an individual has emailed this information to Arran Ferry Action Group it will be stored on servers outside of Arran Ferry Action Group control and therefore its responsibility.
Any information stored electronically will be secured by password protection or by restricted physical access to the storage device.
Any information stored on paper will be protected by restricted physical access.
Data Breach
If a data breach means that any contact or personal information has been passed to others without consent, the individual and the Arran Ferry Action Group Data Protection Lead will be informed. The Arran Ferry Action Group Data Protection Lead will determine what further action may be required. Individuals whose data has been compromised will be informed.
Email Groups
Group emails will not reveal an individual’s email address to other members of the email group unless with the individual’s permission or the email address is already known to the other group members.
Photographs
If photographs are taken at Arran Ferry Action Group events or if the Arran Ferry Action Group wishes to use an individual’s image for publicity and marketing, including on social media, then prior consent will be obtained from the individual. Photographic images will be kept for as long as the individual is a supporter of Arran Ferry Action Group and the images may continue to be used in future publicity activities. The Arran Ferry Action Group will delete and stop using an individual’s image if a request is made by the individual.
Website Information
The Arran Ferry Action Group uses several products to analyse traffic to its website in order to understand our visitor’s needs and to continually improve the site for them. The Arran Ferry Action Group only collects anonymous, aggregate statistics.
Consent
If an individual joins the Arran Ferry Action Group mailing list, the Arran Ferry Action Group forum, or one of the Arran Ferry Action Group social media groups or provides contact or personal information to us then Arran Ferry Action Group assumes that the individual consents to the storage, as described in this policy, of the information that they have provided.
If an individual requests to see their contact or personal information held by the Arran Ferry Action Group it will be provided.
Arran Ferry Action Group will destroy contact or personal information about an individual if requested by them but this might mean that we can no longer provide certain services to them.
Arran Ferry Action Group will update any contact or personal information that we know to be incorrect.
We may change this policy from time to time. If we change our Privacy Policy we will publish those changes on this page.
If you have any questions or concerns about our collection, use or disclosure of your personal information, please get in touch to discuss further.