Hans J Marter

14 October, 2009

SCOTLAND’s transport minister Stewart Stevenson yesterday (Tuesday) warned that there will be no extra money on the table for the new lifeline ferry contract for the northern isles, which comes up for renewal in 2012.

He called on islanders to fully engage in the forthcoming consultation process to ensure that the contract’s specification ensured that local people get the best ferry service possible in the circumstances.

And he firmly rejected any suggestions that Shetland had been treated unfairly when it was excluded from the present Road Equivalent Tariff pilot scheme to the western isles.

Speaking prior to officially opening Lerwick harbour’s £12 million dredging and land reclamation project, the minister said the government had to spend the money it had more cleverly.

“For the next five to eight years there will be very limited opportunities to put more money into very many parts of the public sector, because the amount of money available to the Scottish government is not going to rise and, indeed, in the current year is falling.

“The important thing is how we spend the resources that are available rather than imagining that we can solve the problems and create new innovative services with additional support, because that is going to be very difficult in the years to come,” he said.

He said he wanted to engage with the communities in the northern isles on improving the timetabling of the vessels and how capacity constraints during the summer could be addressed.

He added that freight movement from Shetland was the most important income stream for the current operator NorthLink.

“In the winter we are not filling boats, while in the summer we are full to capacity. Are there better ways we can use the facilities we have to deliver for the community? The local community should make their views known on this,” he said.

Proposals for a dual purpose vessel - freight only in winter, but room for passengers in summer – are currently being worked up, he added.

Responding to continued criticism from islanders as to why Shetland had not been included in the government’s pilot scheme that saw ferry fares reduced to a number of western isles’ ports, the minister said: “The application of the road equivalent tariff would in fact raise fares to Shetland because they are already lower than the scheme we put in place for the 30 month trial to the western isles.

“In putting a trial in place across the 60 plus ferry routes that there are in Scotland, we sought to choose somewhere which was under the most economic strain.

“The western isles have seen a 19 per cent reduction in their population over 20 years, while Shetland has seen stable population over the same period.

“Shetland has unemployment that runs approximately at one third of the current Scottish rate, the western isles has unemployment that is higher than the Scottish rate.

“Shetland has average weekly earnings that are £70 a week higher than the average earnings in the western isles. It is on that basis that the trial that we are undertaking should go to an area of greatest economic stress,” the minister said.