Reader’s letter

John Sillars writes to point out that protests about the hike in concessionary fares have been misdirected.

In June2005, the Scottish Parliament passed the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005. This act allowed the creation of statutory Regional Transport Partnerships, and charged those partnerships with the production of Regional Transport Strategies – including ferry services. In January 2006, the new national transport agency, Transport Scotland, was then charged by Scottish Ministers with providing significant services including the national concessionary travel scheme.

Consequently, when SPT asked the then Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson on March 15th 2010 to incorporate lifeline ferry services into the National Concessionary Travel scheme and he refused, the writing was on the wall for Arran’s previously free ferry fares.

However, Scottish Ministers still had two choices, had they wished to keep fares free for the over sixties. They could have told CalMac to absorb the costs of retaining free fares – as Western Ferries did on the Gourock-Dunoon route – or they could have increased the subsidy to CalMac to cover the costs. As we know, they did neither and free fares were no more.

The buck for the new charges, therefore, rests not on Mr. McLellan’s desk at the SPT in Glasgow. It is lodged very firmly on the Scottish Transport Minister’s desk in Edinburgh.

Yours sincerely,
John Sillars,
Fasgadh,
Brodick.