Why ferries fiasco won't end until SNP drops its 'Holyrood knows best' attitude

Any islander will tell you that one of the great annual traditions – no less essential for being unofficial – is the yearly Christmas homecoming. Whether it is students returning from studies or visiting family members of all ages, the days before December 25 see hundreds of prodigal sons and daughters return to the isles – and fill up the flights and ferries in the process.

That December rush – paired of course with the winter storms we are all-too accustomed to in the isles – makes it the ideal test of the resilience of our transport links. Between increasing numbers of breakdowns, a slow rate of vessel replacement and a complete lack of accountability from ministers in Holyrood, the scores on that test are only going in one direction.

These issues are at the top of my mind this week as I have been visiting family in the Western Isles before returning home to Orkney – thus running the gamut (perhaps that should read “gauntlet”) of isles festive transport services.

Ferries provide a lifeline service to island communities (Picture: John Linton) | PA

Whenever and wherever you speak to people in the isles about transport, two complaints remain consistent: under-investment and cack-handed, disinterested management. Fixing one of those two problems will not be sufficient; we have to tackle both if we are ever going to get island transport right.

The never-ending saga of the west coast ferries should be proof that funding alone is not the answer. People on the west coast were, until a few weeks ago, expecting the Christmas “gift” of the Glen Sannox finally coming into service (a mere six years behind schedule).

By now we all know the punchline to this joke: the Glen Sannox has been delayed again to January – an appropriate holiday hangover. That is bad news for the people who rely on that service, but so unsurprising at this point that it barely qualifies as news.

If the problem were simply a lack of funding it would perhaps be understandable. The SNP, however, happily chose the most expensive bid in commissioning the Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, and then stared on vacantly as the costs more than quadrupled to the region of £450 million – and counting. If only four times the spending got you four times the number of ferries.

Spending money is the easy part; getting something for your money is a little more challenging.

It is not as though we are short on projects that could have done with that cash. Whether on the north or the west coast, more and more ferries are in dire need of replacement, roads need to be repaired and, in many cases, island communities are seeking long-term solutions to transport, such as in the campaign for tunnels in Shetland.

At each turn our communities have been met with a “Holyrood knows best” attitude and high-handed decision-making from the Scottish Government, and its agencies. The way Transport Scotland has treated islanders across Scotland is a disgrace – not least because it appears to be tolerated by SNP ministers in Edinburgh.

More investment is needed but so is a complete rethink of how we design and implement island transport – a rethink led by islanders themselves, instead of imposed from above. Now that would be a festive resolution worth making.

Alistair Carmichael is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland.