We are noticing that the mere mention of the word "ferry" seems to get a lot of our "independent" councillors into a frenzy and usually heralds a tirade towards the Scottish Government about the lack of capacity on the ferries.How did we get to a position where we have capacity issues and tourists are clamouring for slots to visit the Hebrides.
Prior to the SNP government in 2007 when labour were in administration in Holyrood and Westminster, there was a lot of debate over restructuring the ferry routes, tendering etc. It was widely rumoured that the Western Isles should be cut to three mainland services arguing with shrinking budgets (even then) and low volume usage, rationalising the routes was unavoidable.
The SNP argued at the time that reduced travel costs would radically increase the volume of people travelling to the islands, to the point even that the existing services would be inadequate.
The Labour / Liberal Democrat Executive argued that what it termed the "elasticity" of demand simply didn't exist. RET was called "economics of the madhouse".
RET has been a great success and the islands have benefited greatly and the council face a new challenge that more people want to come and visit our beautiful archipelago - one dreads to think what may have happened to tourism had labour still been in administration.
