Campaign urges Apple Maps to recognise tiny Scottish island

A CAMPAIGN is urging an internet communications giant to recognise the island status of a tiny Scottish community.

The island of Easdale is reached by a small ferry. Picture: Jane Barlow/TSPL

The popular Apple Maps app suggests Easdale, one of the Slate Islands in the Firth of Lorn, is connected to the west coast mainland via a causeway to the neighbouring island of Seil.

But Easdale, said to be the smallest permanently inhabited island in the Inner Hebrides, can in fact only be reached via boat. A bridge has connected Seil to the Argyll coast since the 18th century.

The error was spotted by Andy Barrat, whose mother owns a B&B on the island, and was shared on social media.

Posting on an online forum, Barrat said: “Many, many visitors are arriving and think there is a bridge between Seil and the island. It’s causing havoc as they are often unprepared to take the ferry.”

He added: “If you have an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or a Mac, please open Apple Maps, search for Easdale Island, click the little “i” button and choose “Report an Issue”. Just tell them that Easdale is an island, and does not have, as Apple Maps shows it, a little strip of land connecting it to Seil.”

Easdale, which is privately owned, once had a population of more than 500 and was a centre of the British slate industry.

But as the quarries closed its population dramatically shrunk and its community appeared on the brink of vanishing.

The 2009 World Stone Skimming Championships take place on Easdale. Picture: Jane Barlow/TSPL

It is now held up as a model of island regeneration, with a permanent population of around 60 who work in a variety of industries.

The former slate quarries are now flooded and provide a haven for wildlife.