Call for every Scottish island to set its own lockdown rules

A petition is calling on the Scottish Government to allow every island to set its own lockdown exit agenda.

Cars leaving Calmac ferry, Scalasaig harbour, Isle of Colonsay. Picture by Photofusion/Shutterstock

As the country prepares to reopen the floodgates to tourism, the 2,500 name petition wants island communities to be given the option of remaining closed to holidaymakers for longer.

The signatories also want a pledge of additional financial support to keep island communities safe if businesses choose, or are forced, to remain closed.

Petition organiser Jen MacNeill, from Colonsay, who has collected online signatures from 26 Scottish islands, has also made a personal plea for her home island, with its small population and limited medical facilities, to remain closed to tourists until September.

Ms MacNeill said tourist travel could be restricted to people who live in Scotland. She said: “My petition has exposed ugly inter-island divisions. My suggestion could go some way to bridge that gap.”

She claims a one-size-fits-all approach to easing lockdown will not work, saying: “To assume that the appropriate route out of lockdown, as regards to tourism, for one island is the same as the next is as absurd as claiming that tourism re-starting in Glasgow, population approximately 600,000, for example, should occur at the same time, in the same way, as on Colonsay, population approximately 140.”

She added: “It has been widely reported that Scotland is getting close to eliminating the virus. Visitors travelling from Scotland would not be risk free, but the risk of transmission would be much less than if they were travelling from anywhere in the UK. This restriction could be enforced by CalMac.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We are grateful to all our island communities for their support and resilience .”

A CalMac spokesman confirmed that capacity of the large Isle of Mull ferry was restricted to 104 people.

CalMac managing director Robbie Drummond said: “I have huge sympathy with the situation on our islands where there are competing demands between islanders and those businesses which rely on tourism.”